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No. 38 


25 Cts. 



Copyright, 1885, 
by Harper & Brothers 


November 27 , 1885 


Subscription Price 
per Year, 52 Numbers, $15 


Entered at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter 




A BARREN TITLE 



By T. W. SPEIGHT 


AUTHOR OP “THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE ” ETC. 


Books you may hold readily in your hand are the most useful, after all 

Dr. Johnson 


NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

1885 



HARPER’S HANDY SERIES. 


Some of the most attractive of current literature is finding its way into these 
volumes, which you may buy for a quarter, hold easily iu one hand, and slip into 
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Volumes of HARPER’S HANDY SERIES already issued. 

NO. CENTS. 

1. That Terrible Man. A Novel. By W. E. Norris 25 

2. Society in London. By A Foreign Resident 25 

3. Mignon; or, Bootles’s Baby. A Novel. By J. S. Winter. Ill’d. 25 

4. Louisa. A Novel. By K. S. Macquoid. Vol. 1 25 

5. Louisa. A Novel. By K. S. Macquoid. Vol. II 25 

6. Home Letters. By the Late Earl of Beaconsfield. Illustrated.. 25 

7. How to Play Whist. By “ Five of Clubs” (R. A. Proctor).. . 25 

8. Mr. Butler’s Ward. A Novel. By F. Mabel Robinson 25 

9. John Needham’s Double. A Novel. By Joseph Hatton 25 

10. The Mahdi. By James Darmesteter. With Portraits 25 

11. The World of London. By Count Vasili 25 

12. The Waters of Hercules. A Novel 25 

13. She’s All the World to Me. A Novel. By Hall Caine 25 

14. A Hard Knot. A Novel. By Charles Gibbon . 25 

15. Fish and Men in the Maine Islands. By W. H. Bishop. Ill’d. 25 

16. Uncle Jack, and Other Stories. By Walter Besant 25 

17. Mrs. Keith’s Crime. A Novel 25 

18. Souvenirs of Some Continents. By Archibald Forbes, LL.D. . 25 

19. Cut by the County. A Novel. By M. E. Braddon 25 

20. No Medium. A Novel. By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip). 25 

21. Paul Crew’s Story. By A. C. Carr 25 

22. Old-World Questions and New- World Answers. By Daniel 

Pidgeon, F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E 25 

23. In Peril and Privation. By James Payn. Illustrated 25 

24. The Flower of Doom, and Other Stories. By M. Betham- 

Edwards 25 

25. The Luck of the Darrells. A Novel. By James Payn 25 

26. Houp-la. A Novelette. By John Strange Winter. Illustrated. 25 

27. Self-Doomed. A Novel. By B. L. Far jeon. 25 

28. Malthus and His Work. Bv James Bonar, M.A 25 

29. The Dark House. A Novel. By G. Manville Fenn 25 

30. The Ghost’s Touch, and Other Stories. By Wilkie Collins 25 

31. The Royal Mail. By James Wilson Hvde. Illustrated 25 

32. The Sacred Nugget. A Novel. By B. L. Farjeon 25 

33. Primus in Indis. A Romance. By M. J. Colquhoun 25 

34. Musical History. By G. A. Macfarren 25 

35. In Quarters with the 25th (the Black Horse) Dragoons. By 

J. S. Winter 25 

36. Goblin Gold. A Novel. By May Cromqmlin 25 

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by Frances Younghusband 25 

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A BARREN TITLE 


CHAPTER I. 

SHABBY-GENTEEL. 

It was about half-past two on a sunny February 
afternoon when Mr. John Fildew put his nose — 
aquiline and slightly purple as to its ridge — outside 
the door of his lodgings for the first time that day, 
and remarked to himself, with a shiver, that the 
weather was “ beastly cold.” After gazing up the 
street and down the street, and seeing nothing worth 
looking at, he shut the door behind him and strolled 
leisurely away. 

Hayfield Street, in which Mr. Fildew’s lodgings 
were situate, was, despite its name, as far removed, 
both in appearance and associations, from anything 
suggestive of country or rural life as it well could 
be. It was of the town towny. Every house in it 
— and they were substantial, well- built domiciles, 
dating back some seventy or more years ago — was 
let out to three or four families, while in many cases 
the ground-floors had been converted into shops, in 
one or other of which anything might be bought, 
from a second-hand silk dress or sealskin jacket to a 
pennyworth of fried fish or a succulent cow-heel. 

1 


2 


A BARREN TITLE. 


In whatever part of the street you took your 
stand a couple of taverns were well within view, 
and, as a matter of course, there was a pawnbroker’s 
emporium “just round the corner.” It is needless 
to say that the street swarmed with children of all 
ages and all sizes, and that you might make sure of 
having the dulcet tones of a barrel-organ within ear- 
shot every ten minutes throughout the day. It was 
situate somewhat to the west of Tottenham -court 
Road, and ran at right angles with one of the main 
arteries that intersect that well-known thoroughfare. 

In this populous locality Mr. Fildew and his wife 
rented a drawing-room door, consisting of three 
rooms, and including the use of a kitchen below 
stairs ; and here they had lived for between six and 
seven years at the time we make Mr. Fildew’s ac- 
quaintance. As we shall see a great deal of that 
gentleman before the word Finis is written to this 
history, it may perhaps be as well to introduce him 
with some particularity to the reader before setting 
out with him on his afternoon stroll. 

John Fildew at this time was about fifty -two 
years of age, but looked somewhat older. Thirty 
years previously he had been accounted a very hand- 
some man, and there were still sufficient traces of 
bygone good looks to make credible such a tradition. 
But the once clear-cut aquiline nose was now grow- 
ing more coarse and bibulous -looking with every 
year, and the once shapely waist was putting on a 
degree of convexity that troubled its possessor far 
more than any other change that time had seen fit 
to afflict him with. As yet he was by no means 


A BARREN TITLE. 


3 


bald, and his iron-gray hair, however thin it might 
be at the crown, was still plentiful at the sides and 
hack, and being seldom operated upon by the ton- 
sorial scissors, its long, straggling ends mingled with 
the tangled growth of his whiskers and lay on 
the collar of his coat behind. Grizzled, too, were 
whiskers, beard, and mustache, but all unkempt 
and apparently uncared for, growing as they listed, 
and only impatiently snipped at now and again by 
Mr. Fildew himself, when his mustache had grown 
so long as to be inconvenient at meal-times. His 
eyes were his best feature. They were dark, pierc- 
ing, and deep -set, and were overhung by thick, 
bushy brows, which showed as yet no signs of age. 
Their ordinary expression was one of cold, quiet 
watchfulness, but they were occasionally lighted up 
by gleams of a grim, sardonic humor, accompanied 
by a half-contemptuous smile ; and at such times it 
was possible to understand how it happened that 
many not over-observant people came to regard him 
as a genial, good - hearted, easy-tempered fellow, 
when, in truth, there was scarcely one touch of real 
geniality in his composition. 

Unshorn and unkempt as Mr. Fildew might ap- 
pear as regards his hair and whiskers, shabby-genteel 
as he might be in point of attire, he still carried 
himself as one who holds himself superior in some 
measure to the ordinary run of his fellows. His 
boots might bear unmistakable traces of having been 
patched, but they were carefully polished and well- 
set up at the heels. His trousers might be old, and 
it is possible that they too might be patched on cer- 


4 


A BARREN TITLE. 


tain parts not visible to the public eye, but they 
were well ironed at the knees, and were strapped 
over his boots a la militaire. His frock-coat — al- 
ways worn tightly buttoned — might be threadbare, 
inked here and there at the seams, and not after the 
latest fashion, but it had the merit of being an 
excellent fit. His hat, too, might be of ancient 
date, and suspiciously shiny in places, but it was al- 
ways carefully brushed, and was worn with an air of 
assurance and aplomb that made its defects seem su- 
perior to the virtues of many newer head-coverings. 
Mr. Fildew’s linen might be old, possibly darned, 
but such portion of it as was visible to the world at 
large was at least spotlessly white : there was some 
one at home who took care of that. His attire was 
completed by a deep, military-looking stock, a pair of 
faded buckskin gloves, and a substantial Malacca 
cane with a silk tassel. Being naturally a little 
short-sighted, he always carried an eyeglass, but 
rarely made use of it in the streets. 

And yet Mr. Fildew’s shabby attire was not alto- 
gether a matter of necessity with him. One day 
his son Clement ventured to say, “ Father, I wish 
you would go to my tailor, and let him set you up 
with some new toggery.” 

Clem was brushing the collar of his father’s coat 
at the time, and the remark was made laughingly, 
but Mr. Fildew turned with a scowl and confronted 
his son. “ Confound your tailor, sir!” he cried. 
“And you, too,” he added next moment. “ Do you 
think I’ma pauper, that you offer to pay for my 
clothes? If you are ashamed to be seen out with 


A BARREN TITLE. 


5 


me, remember, sir, that there are always two sides to 
a street.” And with that Mr. Fildew turned on his 
heel in high dudgeon. 

Clement and his mother exchanged glances of dis- 
may. “You know how peculiar your father is, 
dear,” said Mrs. Fildew afterwards, “and what lit- 
tle things sometimes touch his dignity. It was in- 
judicious of you to say what you did.” 

Clement shrugged his shoulders. “I have lived 
with my father all my life, and yet I confess that I 
only half understand him,” said the young man. 
“At times he is a complete enigma to me.” 

“ I have lived with him more years than you have, 
and I think that I almost understand him : almost, 
but not quite,” responded Mrs. Fildew, with a smile. 
“But then a woman always does understand a man 
better than another man can hope to do.” 

Clement Fildew might well say that his father 
was an enigma to him. Although the latter refused 
so indignantly to allow his son to be at the expense 
of refurnishing his wardrobe, he was not too proud to 
accept from him his weekly supply of pocket-money. 
But then the money in question found its way from 
Clement’s pocket to that of his father after such a 
delicate and diplomatic fashion that the susceptibili- 
ties of Mr. Fildew had never hitherto been wounded 
in the transaction. Every Friday Clement placed 
in his mother’s hands the sum of one guinea. The 
sovereign and shilling in question were wrapped up 
by Mrs. Fildew in a piece of tissue-paper, and quietly 
deposited by her in a certain drawer in her husband’s 
dressing-table. By Saturday morning the tiny 


6 


A BARREN TITLE. 


packet would have disappeared. No questions were 
asked ; neither Mrs. Fildew nor her husband ever 
spoke to each other on the matter; but silence has 
often a meaning of its own, and it had in this 
case. 

Mr. Fildew having shut the door of his lodgings 
behind him, walked slowly down the street with the 
preoccupied air of a man who is busily communing 
with himself. “ I must ask Clem to lend me half a 
sovereign,” he muttered. “ The necessity is an un- 
pleasant one, but there’s no help for it. I feel cer- 
tain I could have given that fellow last night a 
drubbing at a carom game, but he was too many 
for me at the spot stroke. Experientia docetP 

Unfastening a couple of buttons of his frock-coat, 
Mr. Fildew inserted a thumb and finger into his 
waistcoat pocket, and drew therefrom a sixpence. 
“My last coin,” he murmured. “I really must not 
touch a cue again for another month.” 

Mr. Fildew was methodical in many of his habits. 
There was one tavern at which he made a point of 
calling within ten minutes of leaving home every 
afternoon. It had a little dark, private bar with 
cane-bottomed stools, where the gas was kept half 
turned on all day long. Here Punch and other 
comic papers were always to be found. Somehow, 
Mr. Fildew liked the place, but although he had 
called at it daily for years, no one behind the bar 
knew either his name or anything about him. He 
now pushed open the swing-doors and went in. In 
answer to his nod : — there was no need for him to 
speak — the barman brought him fourpennyworth of 


A BARREN TITLE. 


7 


brown brandy and cold water, together with a mi- 
nute portion of cheese on the point of a knife. Mr. 
Fildew munched his cheese, glanced at the cartoon 
in Punch, sipped up his brandy -and - water, nodded 
a second time to the barman, and went. 

Mr. Fildew walked jauntily along, whistling under 
his breath. The brandy had imparted a glow to his 
feelings and a glow to his imagination : the flame 
would soon drop down again, he knew, but he was 
philosopher enough to enjoy it while it lasted. 

Elderly, shabby - genteel individuals are by no 
means scarce about the West End of London on 
sunny afternoons — inveterate fldneurs whose “bet- 
ter days” are over forever. But Mr. Fildew was 
something more than merely shabby-genteel ; there 
was about him a style, a carriage, an air iindefinable, 
but not to be mistaken, of broken-down distinction, 
which induced many passers-by to turn and glance 
at him a second time as he “ took ” the pavement 
with his slow military stride, his eyes fixed straight 
before him, and his nose held high in air. 

In a few minutes he found himself in Oxford 
Street. Crossing this as soon as there was a break 
in the string of vehicles, he took his way towards 
the mazes of Soho. Stopping at a certain door, he 
gave one loud rap with the knocker followed by two 
quick ones, and next moment the door opened, ap- 
parently of its own accord, and Mr. Fildew walked 
in, after which the door shut itself behind him. He 
had evidently been there before, for without a mo- 
ment’s hesitation he ascended the first flight of 
stairs, turned to the left down a short passage, and, 


8 


A BARREN TITLE. 


opening a door at the end of it, found himself in a 
roomy and well-lighted studio. 

Its only occupant was a very little bandy-legged 
man with a luxuriant crop of curly hair, who was 
sitting on a low stool in front of a big canvas, pal- 
ette and brush in hand and a brier-root pipe between 
his teeth. John Fildew looked round with an air of 
disappointment. . 

“Clem not at home?” he asked of the little man. 

“ Oh, Mr. Fildew, is that you ?” said the latter, 
turning quickly. “ I thought it was Clem come 
back. He’s gone to see Pudgin, the dealer. Won’t 
be long, I dare say.” 

“ This is the third time I’ve called and not found 
him at home.” 

“Ah, just your luck, ain’t it?” said the other, 
coolly. It would almost have seemed from the way 
he spoke as if he held Mr. Fildew in no particular 
regard. 

The latter made no reply, but strode across the 
room and came to a halt immediately behind the 
little painter. 

“ I’m putting the finishing touches to the pedes of 
my saint, Mr. Fildew. I wonder whether the holy 
men of olden time were ever troubled with corns 
or bunions. I suppose it wouldn’t do to paint them 
with any. Rather too realistic, eh ?” 

“ Intended for the Academy, I suppose ?” 

“If their high mightinesses will deign to find it 
hanging room — which is somewhat problematical.” 

Mr. Fildew’s cough plainly implied, “I should 
think it very problematical indeed.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


9 


“Now, about Clem’s picture I don’t think there 
can be any doubt whatever,” said the generous- 
hearted little man. “ They must be dolts, indeed, if 
they reject that. It’s far and away the best thing 
Clem’s done yet. That boy, sir, has a great career 
before him.” 

“From a painter’s point of view, I presume you 
mean ?” said Mr. Fildew, with a sneer. 

“Precisely so. From a painter’s point of view. 
What other point of view could you expect me to 
take ?” 

“No other, I suppose. Chacun d son metier . 
But the words, ‘ a great career,’ hardly associate 
themselves in my mind with anything achieved by 
means of a brush and a paint-pot.” 

“ A paint - pot, indeed ! Let me tell you, sir — 
but you are only chaffing me, Mr. Fildew — only try- 
ing to set my Welsh blood boiling that you may 
have a quiet laugh at me in your sleeve. But, jok- 
ing apart, sir, you ought really to have a look at 
Clem’s picture. It’s there on the other easel. Shall 
I lift the cover for you?” 

“Not to-day, thank you, Macer. I’m not i’ the 
vein. How is it possible for a man to have any 
proper appreciation of the fine arts who hasn’t a sou 
in the world to bless himself with ?” 

“If I might venture to offer, Mr. Fildew — ” said 
Macer, doubtfully. He knew something of his vis- 
itor’s queer moods and sudden spurts of temper, and 
shook in his shoes as he made the offer. 

“Just what I was coming to. You’re a good fel- 
low, Macer,” responded Mr. Fildew, with much af- 


10 


A BARREN TITLE. 


fability. Tony felt immensely relieved. “ The 
truth is, I just looked in to see whether Clem had a 
spare half-sovereign about him; I’ve run rather 
short, as most of us do at odd times.” 

“ If you are in a hurry, Mr. Fildew, and you will 
allow me — ” said Macer, as he opened his purse. 

“ Thanks. Yes, I am in a hurry, and you can set- 
tle with Clem, you know;” and so the half-sover- 
eign was quietly transferred to Mr. Fildew’s pocket. 

“ Any message for Clem, Mr. Fildew ?” 

“No, I think not, Macer. You may just tell him 
that his mother seems a little more cheerful and 
in less pain yesterday and to-day. But, really, I 
don’t wish you to burden your memory with such a 
trifle.” 

“ It won’t seem a trifle to Clem. I could not tell 
him anything that would please him better.” 

“ Hum ! Not even the news that the Acade- 
my had accepted his picture?” asked Mr. Fildew, 
dryly. 

“Not even to hear that would afford him the 
pleasure he would derive from knowing that his 
mother was really better.” 

“ Ah, yes, Clem’s a good boy ; a model son in every 
way.” Macer looked up quickly, but Mr. Fildew, 
with his glass in his eye, was apparently contemplat- 
ing a cobweb in a far corner of the room. “But 
I must go now,” he added, as he turned on his heel. 
“Don’t forget to ask Clem for the half-sovereign; and 
if neither of you should be so fortunate as to have 
your picture hung by the Academy, I hope you won’t 
go and hang yourselves instead.” And, with one of 


A BARREN TITLE. 


11 


his peculiar smiles and a curt nod of the head, he 
left the room. 

“ Poor Clem ! What a pity Providence didn’t 
provide him with a different kind of father,” said 
Tony Macer, as he turned to his work again. “ Egad ! 
if the fellow were worth ten thousand a year, he 
could hardly give himself more airs.” 


CHAPTER II. 


AT THE BROWN BEAR. 

The Brown Bear, the tavern usually patronized by 
Mr. Fildew of an evening, was situate in a quiet 
street no great distance from Bloomsbury Square. 
It was one of the few taverns dating from a bygone 
generation that had escaped the hands of the mod- 
ern innovator. It could boast no plate-glass windows 
lighted up with a score of gas-jets. There was plenty 
of old mahogany, black with age, to be seen inside 
the bar, but there were no mirrors and no gilding; 
neither was there any lavish display of colored glass 
or artificial shrubs. You went down one step from 
the street into the bar, the floor of which was sprin- 
kled with sand, as in the days when George the Third 
was king. A huge oaken beam supported the ceil- 
ing. On a topmost shelf stood a couple of im- 
mense punchbowls backed by some flagons of an- 
tique design, and below them were several bottles of 
Schiedam and other liquors that had been ripening 
for a dozen years. There was an air of sombre sub- 
stantiality about the whole place. 

Behind the bar was the “ coffee-room,” so called. 
Straight-backed, rush-bottomed chairs occupied three 
sides of it, in front of which were ranged four or 
five oblong tables, black with age and much polish- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


13 


ing. At the upper end of the room was an elaborate- 
ly carved arm-chair, where the president or chairman 
for the evening took his seat, opposite which stood a 
brass box containing tobacco, the lid of which flew 
open as often as a halfpenny was dropped through 
an orifice at the opposite end. A few smoke-dried 
prints of coaching and sporting subjects, and three 
or four pipe-racks, decorated the walls. 

The general public were not allowed to invade this 
sanctum ; for them there was another room at the 
opposite end of the bar. The coffee-room was set 
apart and kept sacred for a certain set of regular cus- 
tomers, and such private friends as they might choose 
to bring with them from time to time, who, year in 
and year out, made a point of spending their evenings 
at the Brown Bear. Some there were who put in an 
appearance almost every night, some of them showed 
up only two or three times a week, but they were all 
known to each other and to the landlord, the freema- 
sonry of good-fellowship, or what passed among them 
as such, being the one bond that kept them together. 
Several of them were small tradesmen of the neigh- 
borhood, two or three were connected with the law, a 
few of them were men whose work in this world was 
over, and who were ekeing out the remainder of 
their days on some small pension or private means 
of their own. 

At nine p.m. such of the company as might be pres- 
ent voted one of their number into the chair, a post 
which it was not considered etiquette to vacate till 
the clock struck twelve. At ten o’clock they were 
generally joined by the landlord, who, on such occa- 


14 


A BARREN TITLE. 


sions, ordered and paid for what he drank like an 
ordinary customer. The last proceeding of each 
evening was for the chairman to treat such of the 
company as might be left to “ goes ” of grog at his 
own expense ; one cannot expect to have the honors 
of this world thrust upon one without having to pay 
for them. 

It is quite possible that some of the frequenters 
of the Brown Bear were drawn thither by the love 
of hearing themselves talk, and of having others to 
listen to them, rather than by any more convivial 
motives. Asa consequence, the affairs of the nation 
were discussed and settled, and the proceedings of 
the party in power impugned or approved of, as the 
case might be, to the satisfaction of everybody con- 
cerned ; while such minor topics as the weather, the 
crops, the last murder, or the latest scandal in high 
life, did not fail to come in for their due share of at- 
tention. Some old fogies there were who scarcely 
opened their lips except to order their grog, or to in- 
terject an “ exactly ” or a “ just so ” at the proper mo- 
ment, whenever any particular proposition was point- 
edly aimed at them, but who otherwise puffed placid- 
ly at their pipes in stolid silence. These non-talkers 
were by no means among the least popular of the 
company, for how can a man who feels called upon 
to enlighten his fellow-citizens do so with any satis- 
faction to himself unless he has appreciative listeners? 
That those others chose to be listeners rather than 
talkers was by no means put down to any obtuseness 
of intellect on their part, for are we not taught that 
a still tongue is a sign of a wise head ? and a man may 


A BARREN TITLE. 


15 


be brimful of wisdom, and yet be at pains to conceal 
that fact from his fellows. 

Among such a company as this it might almost 
have seemed as if a man like Mr. Fildew would hard- 
ly have felt himself at home ; but such was by no 
means the case. The truth is, that the majority of 
the frequenters of the Brown Bear, that is to say, 
the small tradesmen portion of them, looked up to 
our friend and yet looked down upon him. They 
looked down upon him because they had a suspicion, 
which, in their case, was next to a certainty, that he 
was always in a chronic state of impecuniosity ; be- 
cause they themselves had their snug little invest- 
ments in one form or other, and could have bought 
him up, root and branch, a hundred times over ; and, 
finally, because it is one of the blessed privileges of 
those who have money to look down on those who 
have none. They looked up to Fildew because there 
was something about the man which told them he 
had at one time belonged to a sphere from which 
they were forever debarred. Through all his pover- 
ty and shabbiness, a faint aroma of fashion and high 
life seemed still to cling to him. The popular notion 
at the Brown Bear was that he had at one time been 
an officer in some crack regiment, who had ruined 
himself by gambling and been discarded by his 
friends. If he spoke of the aristocracy, which, to 
give him credit, was but rarely, he spoke as though 
he were one to the manner born. He seemed to 
know Eton and Oxford as well as he knew Totten- 
ham-court Road, and to be familiar with most of the 
West End clubs. A nobleman’s name could hardly 


16 


A BARREN TITLE. 


be mentioned without his being able to tell some- 
thing about him that the frequenters of the Brown 
Bear had never heard of before. In his very way 
of talking, in his mode of accentuating his words, 
there was an indefinable something which marked 
him out at once from the ordinary frequenters of 
the coffee-room of the B. B. They knew, these petty 
tradesmen, that “ His Grace ” looked down upon 
them from the height of some, to them, invisible 
pedestal; and they in turn looked down upon him 
from the serene height of their money-bags ; and 
yet, as they argued among themselves when he was 
not by, he must, to a certain extent, have liked their 
company, else why did he seek it so persistently 
night after night the year round? 

It was about half-past eight this evening when 
John Fildew walked into the bar of the Brown Bear. 
He nodded to the landlord, and that worthy at once 
touched a spring inside the bar which communicated 
with the door of the coffee-room, after which the 
door opened to Fildew’s hand, and he entered. With 
one man in the room he shook hands, to the rest of 
the company he vouchsafed a general and compre- 
hensive nod. Then he took a vacant chair, and 
having called for a “ go ” of brandy cold, he pro- 
ceeded to select a churchwarden pipe from a heap 
on the table before him and to charge it with to- 
bacco. 

“ How’s the weather by this time, your grace ?” 
asked Mr. Nutt, the shoemaker. “It was just wet- 
ting a bit when I came in.” 

“ The stars are out again,” said Fildew, answering 


A BARREN TITLE. 


17 


to the title as a matter of course. “ Not much likeli- 
hood of any rain to-night.” 

It was not often that he joined in the discussions, 
political or otherwise, that were pretty sure to crop 
up before the evening was at an end. He generally 
sat a silent if not an amused listener. If appealed 
to directly he would give his opinion, but not other- 
wise. That curious, sneering smile of his would now 
and then light up his features at the enunciation by 
one or other of his friends of some more wildly out- 
rageous statement than common, but for the most 
part he and his pipe held silent session together and 
troubled no one with what they thought. 

It was quite understood in the room why Mr. 
Fildew should shake hands with Mr. Denzil and no 
one else. Mr. Fildew was a man who rarely shook 
hands with any one. His reasons for making an ex- 
ception in favor of the young law-writer may be told 
in a few words. One evening, about a year anterior 
to the particular evening to which we have now 
come, Mr. Denzil had made his appearance at the 
Brown Bear considerably the worse for liquor. At 
the moment of his entrance Mr. Fildew was explain- 
ing to the company the ceremonial in connection 
with a royal levee at St. James’s. “ What can a 
shabby dog like you know about the interior of a 
palace ?” hiccoughed Denzil. “ If you have ever been 
inside St. James’s it must have been when you were 
sent for to sweep the chimneys.” 

“ Silence, you drunken fool,” said Mr. Fildew, in 
quietly contemptuous tones. 

But Denzil was not in a mood to be silenced, and 
2 


18 


A BARREN TITLE. 


would probably have insulted the company all round 
had not three or four of his more intimate friends 
removed him as quietly as possible. After that 
evening he and Mr. Fildew spoke to each other no 
more. 

Six or seven months had passed away when one 
evening somebody inquired what had become of 
Denzil, upwards of a week having gone by since his 
last appearance at the B. B. 

“ My potman told me to-day that he had heard he 
was queer,’ 5 remarked the landlord. 

“ What’s the matter with him ? Not d. t. again, 
eh ?” 

“ Some sort of fever, I’m afraid. Catching, too, I 
hear.” 

“ Poor Denzil ! Let us hope he’ll not want for 
good nursing.” 

“How can he have good nursing,” said another, 
“ when, as I happen to know, he hasn’t a single rela- 
tion within a hundred miles of London? He rents 
a back bedroom on a third floor, and gets his meals 
out. That’s the sort of home Denzil has.” 

“ Poor devil ! They ought to have taken him to 
the hospital. He’d have been properly cared for 
there.” 

“ They say he’s too ill to be moved,” remarked the 
landlord, as he placidly puffed at his pipe. Had the 
health of his favorite terrier been in question, some 
show of feeling might naturally have been expected 
from him. 

Then Mr. Fildew spoke. “Gentlemen,” he said, 
“ my opinion is that a deputation of the present com- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


19 


pany ought without delay to inquire into the circum- 
stances attendant on Mr. Denzil’s illness, and make 
such arrangements as may be necessary for having 
him properly cared for.” 

There was a dead silence in the room. Everybody 
puffed away with increased energy at their pipes. 

Mr. Pyecroft, the small-ware dealer, a thin man 
with a squeaky voice, was the first to speak. “ Did 
you say the fever was a catching one, Mr. Landlord ?” 

“ So my potman was given to understand. A bad 
kind of fever — very.” 

“ Humph ! Well, I for one, as a family man, must 
say,” resumed Pyecroft, “that much as I respect 
our friend Denzil, and sincerely as I hope he’ll soon 
be among us again as jovial as ever, I don’t see my 
way to go and inquire personally after his health. 
My duty to my wife and children tells me that I 
ought to take the greatest possible care of my own 
health, for their sakes, if not for my own.” 

“ Hear, hear ! my sentiments exactly,” resounded 
from three or four parts of the room. “Number 
Two is all very well when Number One has been 
properly cared for.” 

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Scoop, the tailor, with a 
doleful shake of the head, “ I am afraid that this is 
one of those unfortunate cases in which friendship 
finds itself with its hands tied. I don’t really see 
that we can do anything. James, another go of 
Scotch with an extra squeeze of lemon this time.” 

Mr. Fildew rose to his feet and put his hat on. 

“ Surely your grace is not going already V' said 
Mr. Nutt, 


20 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ Why, the evening’s quite a baby yet,” remarked 
jovial-faced little Tubbins, the undertaker. “But 
perhaps there’s a lady in the case, eh ? Ah, sly dog, 
sly dog!” and he gave a comprehensive wink for the 
benefit of the company at large. 

“ Gentlemen,” said Mr. Fildew, gravely, “I am go- 
ing to the lodgings of Mr. Denzil. If any one here 
chooses to accompany me, so much the better. If 
not, I shall go alone.” 

He waited a moment, but no one spoke or moved. 

Then he turned on his heel and walked slowly 
out. 

He found Denzil in a raging fever, with no one 
to attend to him but a poor lad who slept in the 
next room. For ten days and as many nights he 
and this lad took it in turns to nurse the sick man, 
until the fever left him and he was on the high-road 
to recovery. Then an old aunt was telegraphed for 
out of Devonshire, and Mr. Fildew went his way. 
And that is the reason why ever afterwards he and 
Denzil shook hands when they met each other at 
the B. B. 

To-night the coffee-room was more lively than 
usual, for Mr. Wimbush, the funny man of the com- 
pany, had advanced the humorous proposition that 
the moment a prime-minister failed to secure a ma- 
jority in the House he ought to be decapitated, and 
was putting it to his friends generally which of them 
would like to take office under such circumstances. 
Lumbering witticisms and time-honored jokes were 
being bandied about; a joke was hardly looked upon 
as a joke at the B. B. till it had done duty some half- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


21 


dozen times, and came to be recognized as an old 
friend. But John Fildew sat as grave as a judge, 
behind his pipe, and took no part in the merriment 
around him. 

By and by in came Mr. Nipper, the auctioneer, 
with the evening paper in his hand. He sat down 
next Mr. Fildew, rubbed up his hair, and selected a 
pipe. “Any news this evening worth reading?” 
asked Fildew, more for the sake of saying something 
than because he cared to know what the news might 
be. 

“ No, everything seems very stale just now,” said 
the auctioneer, as he blew down the stem of his pipe, 
and twisted his little finger appreciatively rotind the 
inside of the bowl. “ There’s an account of a fatal 
accident to one of our young swells ; but the country 
could spare a lot like him without being any the 
worse off,” added Nipper, who prided himself on his 
democratic principles. 

“There are swells and swells,” responded Mr. 
Fildew, dryly. “What was the name of this par- 
ticular one?” 

“The Earl of Loughton. Pitched off his hunter 
and broke his neck. Not quite one-and-twenty.” 

Mr. Fildew, who had been in the act of lifting his 
glass to his lips, put it down untasted. Mr. Nipper 
turned and stared at him. 

“Hullo! I say, what’s the matter? Was the 
young lord a friend of your grace?” This was 
asked with something of a grin. “By Jove! you 
are all of a shake.” 

“ The Earl of Loughton was no friend of mine. 


22 


A BARREN TITLE. 


I never saw him in my life. But I happen to be 
acquainted with the man who will succeed him in 
the title.” 

“ Bully for you, my boy,” responded Mr. Nipper, 
who could not forget that he had once spent six 
months in the States. “ Here’s the account. Per- 
haps you would like to read it.” He pointed to a 
brief paragraph, which Fildew, with the newspaper 
held up within an inch or two of his nose, read care- 
fully through more than once. 

“ I must write to my friend to-night and congrat- 
ulate him,” he said, in his usual quiet, matter-of-fact 
tone, as he laid down the newspaper. “ It will be a 
great surprise for him.” 

“Let us hope that in the day of his prosperity the 
friends of his adversity will not be forgotten,” said 
Nipper, who was one of the orators of the B. B. 

“ It is but a barren honor that he will come into,” 
answered Fildew. “ The title will be his, but the 
estates go elsewhere ;” and nodding a curt “ good- 
night” to the auctioneer, he emptied his glass and 
left the room. 


CHAPTER III. 


NEGOTIATIONS. 

Whether Mr. Fildew ever wrote that particular 
letter respecting which he spoke to Mr. Nipper is 
more than doubtful. Like many other men, he hated 
letter-writing, and it is possible that the incident in 
connection with Lord Loughton, to which he had 
seemed to attach so much importance when he first 
heard of it, may have assumed a different aspect 
when recalled to mind in the cool light of morning. 
In any case, there was no observable difference in 
his appearance or mode of life. He came and went, 
and smoked and drank, as heretofore ; only it might 
be that he was a little more particular in scanning 
the newspapers than he had previously been. At 
the end of a week his friend Nipper said to him, “ I 
see that poor young fellow was buried yesterday.” 

“You mean Lord Loughton? Yes, I saw the ac- 
count in this morning’s paper.” 

“Written to your friend yet?” 

“No. On second thoughts it seemed to me that 
it would be better to wait a few weeks before troub- 
ling him. He’ll have enough to do and plenty to 
think of for a little while.” 

“ Well, I wouldn’t lose sight of him if I were you. 
It must be rather nice to be on nodding terms with 
an earl. Not that I should care about that sort of 


24 


A BARREN TITLE. 


thing, you know,” added Nipper, hastily. He had 
forgotten for the moment that he was in the habit 
of posing as a democrat. “ And then ” — with a 
glance at Fildew’s threadbare coat and patched boots 
— “ he might do something for you, you know : some 
snug little government sinecure, or something of 
that kind. There’s lots of ’em knocking about.” 

Mr. Fildew laughed a little bitterly. “ It may be 
all very well for me not to forget him, but he may 
not choose to remember me.” 

“ W ell, that’s the way of the world and no mis- 
take,” said the auctioneer, with a shrug. “ But, for 
all that, I shouldn’t forget to jog his memory. 
Where’s the use of having swell friends if you can’t 
make use of ’em ?” 

A few evenings later Mr. Fildew called for pen, 
ink, and paper, and, seating himself at a little table, 
apart from the rest of the company, he wrote the 
following letter, which George the potman after- 
wards took for him to the nearest post : 

“The Brown Bear Tavern, Chalcot Street, W.C. 

“ February 25th, 18—. 

“ Messrs. Flicker & Tapp, Bedford Row : 

“ Gentlemen,— In common with a great number of other 
people, I have heard with extreme regret of the untimely de- 
mise of the late Earl of Loughton, That a life so abounding 
in promise should be thus suddenly nipped in the bud must be 
almost enough to cause those near and dear to him to arraign 
the decrees of Providence. 

“ I know not whether it may be a matter of any moment 
either to the Dowager Countess of Loughton or to yourselves, 
as business agents for the family, to be made acquainted with 
the whereabouts of the present earl; but should it be so, I think 
I may safely say that I am the only person in England who can 


A BARREN TITLE. 


25 


furnish you with his address. You may probably be aware 
that Mr. Lorrimore, as we may still call him, has resided abroad 
for several years ; but as I happen to have had a communication 
from him only a fortnight ago, I am fully competent to supply 
you with the information stated above. Should you think it 
worth your while to take any notice of this communication, I 
am to be found here any evening from 8.30 till 11.30 p.m. 

“ I am, gentlemen, faithfully yours, 

“John Fildew.” 

Two evenings passed away without any response, 
but on the third evening a dapper little man, with a 
very shiny hat and a pair of whiskers several sizes 
too large for him, walked into the bar of the Brown 
Bear, and asked for Mr. Fildew. Our friend, being 
called, came lounging out of the coffee-room, his glass 
in his eye and a thumb in each waistcoat pocket. 

“ Are you Mr. John Fildew ?” asked the little 
stranger, taking in the whole of John’s shabby tog- 
gery at a glance. 

“ I am — unfortunately. I often think it would be 
a good thing if I could be somebody else.” 

“My name is Perkins. I have called respect- 
ing a certain letter addressed by you to Messrs. 
Flicker & Tapp. Our senior partner would like to 
know — ” 

“ Pardon me,” interrupted Fildew, blandly, “ but 
if I have not the pleasure of addressing either Mr. 
Flicker or Mr. Tapp, we need not proceed further 
with the matter.” 

“Why, sir — how, sir — I don’t understand you!” 
spluttered Mr. Perkins, becoming as red as a turkey- 
cock. 

“ I am sorry for that. I will put my meaning as 


26 


A BARREN TITLE. 


plainly as possible. I never transact business except 
with principals.” 

“ But I tell you, sir, I have been sent here specially 
to — to — ” 

“ I am sorry that you should have your trouble for 
nothing, but unless Mr. Flicker or Mr. Tapp choose 
to come and consult me in person the matter must 
end here. And, really, I shall not be sorry for it to 
do so.” 

“ Mr. Flicker or Mr. Tapp come to a place like 
this !” 

“ Why not, my dear Mr. Perkins ? If the place is 
good enough for me, surely it is good enough for 
them.” 

“ Why, you impertinent, shabby — ” 

“ Gently, my dear Mr. Perkins, gently. I’ve rather 
a partiality for little men, so long as they behave 
themselves; but when little men become imperti- 
nent I’ve a nasty trick of caning them ( verbum 
sap.). But have a drop of something hot before you 
go. This house has a name for its old Jamaica, and 
I’ve an odd sixpence somewhere in a corner of my 
pocket.” 

“ To the devil with yonr Jamaica and your six- 
pence too !” ejaculated Mr. Perkins. “ It’s my opin- 
ion that you’re nothing better than a common swin- 
dler;” and, jamming his hat over his brows, the lit- 
tle man turned abruptly on his heel and left the bar. 
Mr. Fildew, after a grim, silent laugh, went back to 
his pipe in the coffee-room. 

Three days later Mr. Fildew found a note awaiting 
his arrival at the Brown Bear. It ran as follows : 


A BARREN TITLE. 


27 


“ No. 429 Bedford Row. 

“Messrs. Flicker & Tapp will be at liberty to see Mr. John 
Fildew any morning between half-past ten and two, if he will 
favor them with a call as above.” 

To this the following answer was sent : 

“ The Brown Bear Tavern. 

“Mr. Fildew is sorry to say that his numerous engagements 
preclude him from having the pleasure of waiting on Messrs. 
Flicker & Tapp, as suggested in their note of yesterday. As 
previously stated, Mr. Fildew may be found at the above address 
any evening prior to 11.30 p.m.” 

“ They shall wait upon me, not I upon them,” said 
Mr. Fildew to himself, with an emphatic bang of his 
fist upon the unoffending postage-stamp. 

And so it came to pass ; for one evening the great 
Mr. Flicker himself put in an appearance at the 
Brown Bear, having left his brougham at the cor- 
ner of the street. He was a tall, thin, melancholy- 
looking man, like an attenuated life-guardsman who 
had turned mute for a livelihood. He stood among 
the bar- frequenters for a moment or two while Mr. 
Fildew was summoned, looking as grim, cold, and 
uncompromising as if he had been carved out of 
monumental marble. 

“ I am Mr. Flicker.” 

“ I am Mr. Fildew.” 

Then the latter said a few words to the landlord, 
and the two gentlemen were ushered up-stairs into a 
private room. As soon as the door was shut, said 
the lawyer: “ ¥e received rather a singular commu- 
nication from you a few days ago, Mr. Fildew.” 

“In what did the singularity of my communica- 
tion consist, Mr. Flicker ?” 


28 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ I will be frank with you, and I trust you will be 
equally frank with me.” 

Mr. Fildew bowed, but said nothing. 

“ May I be permitted to ask by what reasons you 
were influenced in your assumption that a knowl- 
edge of the address of — of — ” 

“ Of the present Earl of Loughton,” suggested Mr. 
Fildew, blaudly. 

“ That a knowledge of the address of the person 
named in your letter,” said Mr. Flicker, loftily, 
“ could be of any possible interest either to the 
Dowager Lady Loughton or to myself or partner?” 

“Were I so minded, I might content myself by 
replying that the fact of your presence here this 
evening is a proof that the information proffered by 
me has a certain measure of interest for you, and 
possibly for her ladyship also. But you have asked 
me to deal frankly with you, and I will endeavor to 
do so. Since writing my first letter to you, I have 
had a communication from his lordship containing 
certain instructions, and giving me full power to act 
in his behalf in this matter.” 

Mr. Flicker’s eyebrows went up perceptibly, but 
he simply bowed and waited to hear more. 

“ Before proceeding further, ’ resumed Mr. Fildew, 
“ it may be as well if I give you our view of "‘he 
case as it now stands. Of course we are all aware 
that the title, as it comes to the present earl, is what 
may be called a barren honor, there being no entail. 
Not one golden guinea, not one acre of moorland, 
comes with it. * The father of the late earl, when he 
drew up his will, might have foreseen the contin- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


gency which the strange irony of events — all un- 
likely as it then seemed — has now brought about. 
He took every possible precaution that his scape- 
grace cousin, the man who, on account of his evil 
doings, had been compelled to expatriate himself 
long years before, should not inherit a single rood of 
the property, and he would doubtless have willed 
the title away also had it been in his power to do 
so. The greater share of the property comes to 
Miss Collumpton, and a lesser share to Mr. Slingsby 
Boscombe, both of whom are half-cousins to the late 
earl, and I believe it has long been considered a de- 
sirable thing in the Lorrimore family that the two 
young people in question should unite their fortunes 
in wedlock. Should this consummation be brought 
about, one thing and one only would be needed to 
make such a union a matter for rejoicing among 
gods and men. The one thing needful would be 
that the title should accompany the estates.” Mr. 
Fildew paused for a moment to relight the pipe he 
had brought with him from the coffee-room. “ Which 
is your favorite tobacco, Mr. Flicker V 1 he asked, as 
he blew a cloud of smoke from his lips. “For my 
part, give me bird’s-eye for choice.” 

“ I never use tobacco in any shape, sir,” said Mr. 
Flicker, with a sort of lofty scorn. 

“ Then let me tell you, sir, that you lose one of 
the pleasures of existence. But to return to our mut- 
tons. As you and I are well aware, Mr. Flicker, un- 
der present circumstances the title cannot go with 
the estates ; but it may follow them, and that at no 
distant date. The life of one elderly gentleman — of 


30 


A BARREN TITLE. 


a gentleman who has been in infirm health for years 
— is all that now stands between Mr. Slingsby Bos- 
combe and an earldom. But supposing this same el- 
derly gentleman were to marry aud have issue, where 
would Mr. Boscoinbe’s chance be in that case Mr. 
Fildew put up his glass and stared across at his com- 
panion as if awaiting a reply ; but Mr. Flicker merely 
blew his nose with a melancholy air, and said nothing. 

“ However, as I am instructed,” resumed Mr. Fil- 
dew, “ matrimony is the last thought in his lordship’s 
mind. At the same time, he does not relish the idea 
of succeeding to the title without any income to sup- 
port it with. What, therefore, I am empowered to 
suggest is a compromise. Provided his lordship will 
enter into an engagement not to contract a matrimo- 
nial alliance, the question is what amount per annum 
the dowager countess, or Miss Collumpton, or Mr. 
Slingsby Boscombe, or all three of them together, 
will be prepared, after due consideration, to allow 
him out of the estate.” 

Mr. Fildew let his eye-glass drop and resumed 
smoking. 

Mr. Flicker sat and stared at him across the table. 
His respect for the strange, shabby, tobacco-flavored 
man before him had gone up thirty per cent, during 
the last few minutes. 

“ Well, Mr. Fildew, really I am at a loss to know 
in what light to regard the strange proposition you 
have put before me. I have no instructions to — 
to—” 

“ I can’t quite understand that,” broke in Fildew, 
“ and I am not such an ass as to expect an answer 


A BARREN TITLE. 


31 


from you off-hand. Take my proposition away with 
you, and you and the dowager can consider it at 
your leisure. You know by this time where I am 
to be found.” 

Mr. Flicker rose. His sluggish blood was begin- 
ning to simmer. He felt that he had been quietly 
put down all through the interview. The strange 
being before him had actually had the presumption 
to address him in the same tone that he himself 
might have made use of when speaking to one of 
his clerks. 

“ By-the-bye, there is one point that I must press 
specially on your attention,” resumed Fildew, as he 
too rose. “ His lordship informs me that the first 
step in the negotiations, should your side agree to 
negotiate at all, must be a distinct understanding 
that the debts, on account of which he left England 
so many years ago, shall be discharged in full. His 
lordship makes that a sine qua non.” 

“If his lordship may be judged by the tone of 
his mouthpiece,” said Mr. Flicker, dryly, “ it seems 
pretty evident that he looks upon himself as master 
of the situation.” 

“ It is quite possible that such may be the earl’s 
own opinion. But, in any case, Mr. Flicker, I think 
that you and I understand each other by this time.” 

Mr. Flicker muttered something that was inaudible 
and opened the door. “ One moment, if you please,” 
said Mr. Fildew. Then he rang the bell. “ James, 
be good enough to light this gentleman down-stairs 
and conduct him through the bar.” 

Four days later the following letter was put into 


32 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Mr. Fildew’s hands: “If Mr. Fildew will call at 
No. 287 Harley Street, at noon to-morrow (Tuesday), 
the Dowager Countess of Loughton will be at home.” 

Never had John Fildew looked more uncompro- 
misingly and audaciously shabby than when he 
knocked at 287 Harley Street. His hat and coat 
might not have been brushed for days. His boots 
seemed to lack something of their usual polish. He 
wore a frayed black satin stock with long ends, which 
completely hid whatever portion of his shirt-front 
might otherwise have been visible, but which, at the 
same time, gave one the idea that perhaps there was 
nothing to hide. A faint, a very faint, aroma of 
stale tobacco floated round him as he moved. 

The bleak March winds had made the ridge of his 
nose look more purple than usual, and when he put 
a dingy piece of pasteboard into the hand of the tall 
footman who answered his knock, that functionary 
was evidently disposed to look upon him as a mem- 
ber of the great fraternity of shabby-genteel beggars. 

“Take that to the Countess of Loughton, and be 
quick about it,” said Mr. Fildew, in the sharp mili- 
tary way he sometimes affected, for the man was 
turning the card over and hesitating. 

Three minutes later Mr. Fildew found himself in 
the presence Qf the countess and Mr. Flicker. 

The Dowager Lady Loughton was nearly eighty 
years old, but was still a wonderfully active and 
bright-eyed little woman. The tradition ran that 
she had been accounted a great beauty in her youth, 
but her nose and chin nearly touched each other now, 
and when she grew very earnest in conversation her 


A BARREN TITLE. 


S3 


head began to nod as if to add emphasis to her words, 
but that was simply because she could not keep it 
still at such times. All her life she had borne the 
reputation of being a good hater, and it was said that 
her tongue grew more venomous each year that she 
lived. The sudden death of her grandson had doubt- 
less been a great blow to her, but she bore the loss 
with a stoicism which would not let any signs of grief 
be witnessed by those about her. Some of the coun- 
tess’s dearest friends averred that her grief at the 
fact of the title having to lapse into another branch 
of the family was quite as poignant as that which she 
felt for the loss of the young earl ; but then we all 
know what strange things our dearest friends will 
say about us. 

The countess examined Mr. Fildew through her 
double eye-glass — even at seventy-eight she would 
not take to spectacles — as he crossed the room after 
the servant had shut the door behind him. Mr. 
Flicker’s description of the man had made her 
slightly curious respecting him. In that elegantly 
furnished room John Fildew’s shabbiness looked 
shabbier by contrast. Had he been dressed as an 
ordinary working man he would not have looked 
nearly so much out of place as he did in the worn 
and rusty garments of a broken-down man about 
town. The only change in his attire that he had 
made in honor of the occasion consisted of a pair 
of very ancient black-kid gloves, which had been 
stitched and restitched so often that nothing more 
could be done for them, and a narrow mourning 
band round his hat. 


34 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“You are Mr. Fildew?” asked the countess, with 
a sort of sweet condescension in her tones. 

“ And you are the Dowager Lady Loughton.” 

Her ladyship looked at Mr. Flicker as much as to 
say, “You were quite right; a strange being, truly.” 
Then she said aloud, “Pray take a chair, Mr. Fil- 
dew.” 

This Mr. Fildew did, planting himself close to the 
little table near which the countess and the lawyer 
were seated. Then he stared mildly through his 
glass at one and the other of them, as waiting to 
hear more. 

“ Mr. Flicker has confided to me the purport of 
his interview with you a few evenings ago,” began 
the countess. 

“ And the decision which her ladyship has arrived 
at,” croaked Mr. Flicker, “is that the suggestion 
then put forward by you is totally inadmissible, and 
cannot be entertained for a moment.” 

“Then may I ask,” said Mr. Fildew, with a sort 
of grave surprise, “ why I have been summoned to 
Harley Street this morning? All this might surely 
have been told me under cover of a penny postage- 
stamp.” 

“ Although I cannot at present see my way to en- 
tertain the proposition which Mr. Lorrimore has 
thought fit to make through you,” said the coun- 
tess, “ it may still be conceded that I am not with- 
out a little natural curiosity to learn some particulars 
concerning the man himself, and what he has been 
doing these many years since he left England.” 

“ I have no authority to gratify your ladyship’s 


A BARREN TITLE. 


35 


curiosity. I am here simply to negotiate a certain 
business transaction. As there seems no probability 
of our coming to terms I may as well take my leave 
at once. When Lord Loughton arrives in England 
he will no doubt be able to satisfy your ladyship’s 
affectionate inquiries : whether he will care to do so 
is another matter.” Mr. Fildew rose and pushed 
back his chair. 

“ Sit down, sir,” said her ladyship, with an imperi- 
ous gesture. “If you were Lord Loughton himself 
you could not treat me more cavalierly.” Her head 
began to nod portentously. 

“Suppose I am Lord Loughton ?” said Mr. Fildew, 
quietly, as he resumed his seat. 

“ Eh !” said her ladyship, with a sudden scared 
look. 

“ I say — suppose I am Lord Loughton ?” 

She stuck her double eyeglass across her nose and 
stared at him for a moment or two. “You Lord 
Loughton — you!” she said, with a little derisive 
cackle. “ Tchut ! tchut ! that would be a farce in- 
deed.” 

“ A farce that, like many others in real life, may 
involve a most serious meaning. But whether it be 
a farce or a masquerade, it is high time it were ended. 
Permit me, therefore, to introduce myself to your 
ladyship as John Marmaduke Lorrimore, ninth Earl 
of Loughton.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


TERMS PROPOSED. 

“I don’t believe one word you have said. You 
are nothing but a vile impostor,” exclaimed Lady 
Loughton, with all the energy at her command, 
while her head continued to wag as if at any mo- 
ment it might fall off. 

Mr. Flicker rose from his chair, and, with his hands 
resting on the table, stared across at the audacious 
being sitting opposite to him. His mouth opened 
and then shut. Finding no language forcible enough 
to express a tithe of what he felt, he sat down again 
without speaking, and blew his nose. It was a pro- 
test more eloquent than words. 

“ Your ladyship always had a reputation for speak- 
ing your mind. I find that the old habit still clings 
to you,” said Mr. Fildew, quietly, as he toyed care- 
lessly with a paper-knife. 

“You are nothing but a charlatan, sir, and my 
servants shall turn you out of doors.” Her ladyship 
laid a finger on the tiny silver gong at her elbow, 
but Mr. Fildew’s next words arrested the move- 
ment. 

“I remember on one occasion when I was at Ring- 
wood,” he said, “ and I could not have been more 
than eight or nine years old at the time, what a 


A BARREN TITLE. 


37 


scrape Cousin Charley and I got into through bird- 
nesting in the woods when we ought to have been 
learning our lessons. We were stealing in through 
the back entrance, as black as two sweeps, when your 
ladyship caught us. What a setting down yon gave 
us, to be sure ! Charley being Earl of Loughton — 
he came into the title, you know, when he was seven 
years old — was sirqply scolded and forgiven, while I, 
being merely cousin to the Earl of Loughton, and no- 
body in particular, was not only scolded but sent with 
your ladyship’s compliments to Mr. Pembroke, the 
tutor, and would he please cane me enough for two. 
The sight of you again, madam, brought this little 
reminiscence quite freshly to my mind.” 

Snarling till she showed the whole of her false 
teeth, and shaking a withered finger at Mr. Fildew, 
the countess said, “ I repeat, sir, that you are nothing 
but a charlatan. Don’t for one moment imagine that 
you can bamboozle me with any made-up tales about 
Ringwood, and what happened there thirty or forty 
years ago. Any fool could work up evidence of that 
kind.” 

“ There used to be a good deal of company at the 
old place in those days,” resumed Mr. Fildew, with- 
out heeding her ladyship’s outburst in the least. 
“Where are the old faces by this time, I wonder? 
Scattered to the four quarters of the globe, I sup- 
pose, such of them as are still alive. Does your 
ladyship remember Captain Bristow ? I wonder 
whether he is still among the living.” 

It was strange to see the hot color mount to her 
ladyship’s forehead. She blushed like any girl of 


38 


A BARREN TITLE. 


eighteen. Then she took up her fan. “ Mr. Flicker,” 
she said, “ will you oblige me by opening that win- 
dow a couple of inches? I feel a little faint. Thank 
you. And now, sir,” turning to Mr. Fildew, “ pray 
what do you know about Captain Bristow ?” 

“I have some very pleasant reminiscences in con- 
nection with the handsome captain. For one thing, 
he always tipped me liberally when he came to Ring- 
wood. One day I happened to be the unseen witness 
of a little comedietta in which your ladyship and the 
captain enacted the chief — indeed, I may say, the 
only characters. I had been to the library to fetch a 
book for Mr. Pembroke, when, happening to hear 
voices in the blue boudoir, which, as yon may remem- 
ber, madam, is the room next the library, and perceiv- 
ing that the door was ajar, I peeped in and saw- 
now, what does your ladyship think that I saw ?” 

The countess coughed, and Mr. Flicker, in obedi- 
ence to an almost imperceptible sign, rose softly from 
his chair and walked away to the farthest window, 
humming under his breath. 

“ I saw,” resumed Mr. Fildew, with hardly a break, 
“ the captain on his knees before your ladyship — the 
earl had been dead at that time about two years — I 
saw him kiss your hand, and I saw that yon, madam, 
did not repulse him. I was not near enough to hear 
the words which passed between you, but presently 
I saw the captain take a ring out of his waistcoat 
pocket and slip it on to your ladyship’s finger. Then 
there came a knock at the other door, and the captain 
had barely time to rise before in came a servant with 
a letter for him. It was a message to say that his 


A BARREN TITLE. 


39 


father was dying. He left Bingwood that night, 
and never, so far as I know, entered its doors again. 
But I notice that your ladyship still wears the ring 
which Captain Bristow slipped on your finger that 
sunny afternoon. That is the one on the third finger 
of your right hand.” 

Lady Loughton sank back in her easy-chair, and 
turned as white as she had been red before. “ Water,” 
she said, faintly, pointing to a carafe that stood upon 
a side-table. Mr. Flicker was by her side in a mo- 
ment. When she had drunk a little water, he said, 
“ Shall I ring the bell for your maid 

“ No. I shall be better presently. I hate having 
a fuss made about trifles.” Then, after a moment or 
two of silent thought, she said suddenly, “ Flicker, 
that man ” — pointing to Mr. Fildew with her fan — * 
“ is either John Marmaduke Lorrimore or Beelze- 
bub !” 

Mr. Flicker rubbed his chilly hands together and 
bowed low — very low. Whether the bow was in- 
tended for the Earl of Loughton or for the Prince 
of Darkness was best known to himself. 

“I am sorry, my lord,” he said, “that with a 
recent melancholy tragedy still fresh in my mem- 
ory, I cannot congratulate your lordship as I should 
like to have done on your accession to so distin- 
guished a title.” 

“ You are not a bit like a Lorrimore,” broke in her 
ladyship, in the abrupt way which was habitual with 
her. 

“And yet you used to say that I had more of a 
Lorrimore look than even your own son had.” 


40 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ It seems impossible that you can ever have been 
that long-haired, fair-skinned boy whom I used to 
nurse and spoil.” 

“ And box and scold — don’t forget that, madam. 
I have fought with wild beasts at Ephesus since 
those days, and there’s little left of me but a 
wreck.” 

“What are your means of living?” 

“ I have a private income of one pound per 
week.” 

“ And you exist on that ?” 

“ On that I exist.” 

This statement, if not strictly in accordance with 
fact, was still sufficiently near the truth. The coun- 
tess and Mr. Flicker exchanged looks. 

“And now, sir, if you are prepared to state cate- 
gorically to Mr. Flicker and myself what it is that 
you think we ought to do for you, we will listen to 
what you may have to say.” The dowager was care- 
ful not to address him by his title, although she had 
virtually acknowledged his right to it. 

“ What I think you ought to do is this,” said the 
earl, with quiet deliberation. “ In the first place, to 
pay my debts, amounting, with interest, to a trifle 
over six thousand pounds ; and, in the second place, 
to allow me twelve hundred a year for life, to be 
paid quarterly in advance.” 

“Tut-tut-tut!” said the countess. “The man must 
be mad — crazy. Six thousand pounds down and 
twelve hundred a year for life! Where do you im- 
agine, sir, that any such outrageous sums are to be 
obtained from ?” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


41 


“ When Charles came of age I remember that his 
income was set down as being a clear eighteen thou- 
sand a year, and I don’t suppose the estate has depre- 
ciated in value since that time.” 

“ My life interest in the estate, let me tell you, sir, 
is only to the extent of three thousand per annum.” 

“ Of that, madam, I am quite aware. But there 
are other people interested in this question besides 
yourself. Your niece, Miss Collnmpton, for instance, 
and Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, who hopes to be Earl of 
Loughton whenever Providence may be pleased to 
snuff me out of existence.” 

“And pray what are the special advantages that 
might be supposed to accrue to the family in general, 
supposing, for the sake of argument merely, that 
they were disposed to entertain your ridiculous prop- 
osition ?” 

“The advantages are self-evident. The family 
surely do not wish to see an honorable and ancient 
title dragged through the mire at the heels of a pau- 
per, and what am I but a pauper ? Then, again, I 
am not a marrying man. I don’t want to marry. 
Miss Collumpton and Mr. Boscombe may become 
man and wife with the blissful certainty that the title 
will be theirs in ten or a dozen years at the most — it 
may be in ten or a dozen months.” 

“ Suppose, on the other hand, that we decline in 
toto to have anything to say to your proposition 

“ In that case, madam, my course lies clear before 
me. I cannot, as an earl, be expected to exist on a 
pound a week ; that would be too absurd. I have 
the honor to rent an apartment over a milk-shop in 


42 


A BARREN TITLE. 


one of our most populous suburbs. My landlady has 
one daughter — a buxom, apple-cheeked, red-armed 
young woman of five-and- twenty, who serves in the 
shop. I should make this estimable young person 
Countess of Loughton. For I am growing old, mad- 
am, and feel to need the comforts of a home, and 
what is twenty shillings a week for a nobleman to 
live on ? I have reason to believe that the milk 
business is a lucrative one, and, with an earl at the 
head of it, it would become ten times more lucrative 
than it is now. Of course, I should have my name 
in full over the door: ‘John Marmaduke Lorrimore, 
Earl of Loughton.’ And the same on our business 
cards, with the family escutcheon underneath, and 
the family motto Je puis. Then would follow the 
usual announcements : 6 New milk twice a day. Pure 
Aylesbury butter. Our eggs, eight a shilling, are 
guaranteed by the Countess. References kindly per- 
mitted to the Dowager Lady Loughton, No. 287 
Harley street, and to Mr. Flicker, of the eminent firm 
of Flicker & Tapp. The earl will be on view in 
the shop any day from ten till eleven a. m., engaged 
in the perusal of the Morning Post? I should send 
out circulars and cards to every name enshrined in 
Debrett. Twelve hundred a year, madam, would not 
cover the profits of such a concern. And, by and by, 
1 should hope to have a son and heir to inherit his 
father’s title and his mother’s business.” 

His lordship, for so we must henceforth call him, 
stared gravely across the table at Lady Loughton. 
For a little time no sound was heard save the ob- 
trusive ticking of Mr. Flicker’s watch. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


43 


“Do you think, sir, you are altogether in your 
right senses ?” asked the countess at length, turning 
on him in her quick way. 

“ Well, really, Aunt Barbara ” — she winced at the 
appellation — “ I have sometimes asked myself the 
same question. I have a theory that we are all more 
or less mad on some point or other, and probably I 
am neither better nor worse than the majority of my 
fellows.” 

“ You can go now, sir,” said the countess, presently. 
“ I have seen enough of you for one day — more than 
enough. Should I care to see you again I will send 
for you.” 

“ Flicker knows where a letter will always find 
me, v said the earl, with easy condescension, as he 
pushed back his chair and possessed himself of his 
dilapidated hat. “ You will think over what I have 
said, Aunt Barbara, will you not? As I remarked 
before, I am not a marrying man, and really, to go 
into the milk trade would be rather below the dignity 
of an earl, would it not?” He was rubbing his hat 
tenderly with the sleeve of his threadbare coat as he 
spoke. 

“Go! go!” was all that the countess could say, as 
she pointed with a skinny finger to the door. 

“I have the honor, madam, to wish you a very 
good morning,” said the earl, bowing low over his 
hat. “ Flicker, I shall, doubtless, see you again be- 
fore long.” 

Lord Loughton walked slowly down the broad 
staircase, under the eyes of the two tall footmen in 
the hall. But scarcely had he reached the lowest 


44 


A BARREN TITLE. 


stair before Mr. Flicker called over the balusters in 
his most dulcet tones, “My lord — my lord — you have 
left your pocket-handkerchief behind you.” Had 
some one fired off a gun close by the heads of the 
two footmen they could not have been more startled. 

“ Did you not hear, sir ?” said the earl, sharply, to 
one of them. “ Fetch me my pocket-handkerchief, 
and be quick about it.” 

The man had never climbed those stairs so quickly 
before. A minute had hardly elapsed before he 
came down again, carrying a silver salver on which 
lay his lordship’s well-worn green-and-red bandana. 
The earl took his handkerchief off the salver with 
the gravest air in the world, and replaced it in his 
pocket. Then the massive door was flung wide open, 
and he marched slowly forth into the street. Stop- 
ping at the first tavern he came to, and pushing open 
the swing-doors, he went in and called for four-penny- 
worth of brandy-and-water and a mild cheroot. 


CHAPTER V. 


TERMS ACCEPTED. 

A fortnight passed after Lord Loughton’s inter- 
view with the dowager countess before he received 
any further communication from her. During that 
time life went on with him in its ordinary humdrum 
fashion. Ho one either saw or suspected any differ- 
ence in him. If the misfortunes and mishaps of his 
earlier life had taught him nothing else, they had at 
least taught him the virtue of patience. He was 
emphatically a man who could bide his time. 

But at the end of a fortnight there came a note 
addressed to Mr. Fildew, at the Brown Bear, in 
which he was informed that the countess would see 
him at the Charing Cross Hotel at eleven o’clock 
next morning. He smiled grimly to himself as he 
read. “We are ashamed of our shabby relation, it 
seems,” he muttered. “We don’t want him to call 
again in Harley Street till he is a little more pre- 
sentable.” 

But he was not one whit more presentable when 
he was ushered into her ladyship’s room next morn- 
ing. “A more deplorable object than ever,” were 
her ladyship’s words afterwards to Mr. Flicker. The 
ends of two fingers had burst completely through his 
gloves and refused to be hidden any longer, while the 


46 


A BARREN TITLE. 


shiny patch on one side of his hat was certainly grow- 
ing in circumference from day to day. It is quite 
possible that he had some ulterior object to serve in 
thus appearing at his shabbiest before the countess. 

He walked across the room rather more briskly 
than usual, and when he reached the countess he put 
out his hand. But her ladyship made believe not to 
see it, and motioned him to a chair. He took it, not 
in the slightest degree abashed by her refusal to shake 
hands with him. The inevitable Mr. Flicker was 
seated close by, as monumentally cold and as mutely 
observant as ever. 

Her ladyship’s first remark was a somewhat singu- 
lar one. “Mr. Flicker,” she said, “will you oblige 
me by looking behind the left ear of — of the person 
opposite to me, just at the back of the lobe, and tell 
me whether you find a large mole there?” 

Mr. Flicker rose from his seat, coughed deferen- 
tially, adjusted his double eye-glass on his nose, and 
walked gingerly across the floor to where Lord 
Loughton was sitting. “ Pardon me,” he said in his 
blandest tones; “it is at her ladyship’s special request 
that I do this.” 

The earl smiled, or it may be he only sneered — 
one could not always feel sure which was intended 
— but said nothing. Bending his head slightly for- 
ward, he lifted up the tangled masses of his iron-gray 
hair with one hand and pulled at the lobe of his ear 
with the other, so as to assist Mr. Flicker in his search 
for the birth-mark. 

That gentleman, with his hands behind his coat- 
tails, bent his head and peered through his glasses as 


A BARREN TITLE. 


47 


though he were trying to decipher some half-illegi- 
ble inscription. “ Nothing to be seen, I suppose, is 
there?” asked the dowager at last, drumming impa- 
tiently on the table with her fingers meanwhile. 

“ Pardon me, madam, but there is certainly a very 
large mole here, just behind the lobe of the left ear,” 
replied Flicker, in his slow, precise way. 

“ There is, eh ? A mole. You are quite sure?” 

“ Quite sure, Lady Loughton. There can be no 
mistake in the matter, I give you my word of honor. 
A very fine mole, indeed.” 

Her ladyship sighed. “ Ah, well, then,” she said, 
after a moment’s silence, “ I suppose we must really 
put him down as being the Earl of Loughton.” 

“ I thought that point was finally settled when I 
saw your ladyship last,” said the earl. 

“ Then it shows, sir, how little you know about it. 
Nothing is finally settled in this world, except that 
there are a vast number of rogues and vagabonds in 
it.” 

“ It would not be half such a diverting place with- 
out them,” said the earl, with a chuckle. Mr. Flicker 
shook his head in his slow, melancholy way, but did 
not speak. Such doctrines were dreadful to listen 
to, especially when enunciated by a peer of the realm. 

Her ladyship was staring intently at the fire. 
After a while she said, without turning round, “ The 
strange proposition which you chose to lay before 
me when I saw you last has been received with more 
consideration than it deserved. It has been decided 
by my advisers, conjointly with the advisers of Miss 
Collumpton and Mr. Slingsby Boscombe, in the first 


48 


A BARREN TITLE. 


place, to pay off the debts contracted by you some 
thirty years ago, after receiving from you a full and 
correct schedule of the same; and, in the second 
place, to allow you an income of six hundred pounds 
per annum so long as you continue to remain un- 
married ; and I must say that I consider the offer a 
most munificent one.” 

“ Oh, yes, most munificent !” sneered the earl. 
“ Six hundred a year out of eighteen thousand ; yes, 
certainly, most munificent.” 

“ Do yon, or do you not, agree to the terms ?” 

“ Beggars cannot be choosers, madam; and, as 1 
have said more than once already, I am not a marry- 
ing man.” 

“ Mr. Flicker will settle all details with you.” Mr. 
Flicker rubbed his hands and bowed. “ You will, 
of course, sign an undertaking not to marry so long 
as the income is continued to you.” 

“Pardon me, madam, but I must decline to sign 
any such document. My word of honor must be 
taken as a sufficient guarantee of my intentions.” 

“Your word of honor! Pray, how much would 
that article fetch if it were put up to auction ?” 

Mr. Flicker crossed the floor and whispered a few 
words in the countess’s ear. “ If you really think so, 
let it be so,” she said to him. Then she said to the 
earl, “ As I said before, I will leave you and Flicker 
to settle details.” 

“May I presume that your lordship has never been 
married?” asked the lawyer, in his most insinuating 
tones. He was looking down and fumbling with 
some papers on the table before him. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


49 


The countess turned her head quickly. 

“ Never, Flicker, never,” replied the earl, impres- 
sively ; “ on that word of honor which her ladyship 
believes would fetch so little if put up for sale. I 
have been very near it, though, once or twice — very 
near it indeed — but Providence has always inter- 
vened.” 

Her ladyship turned away in a huff. 

There was an interval of silence. Mr. Flicker was 
engaged in tying up his documents, and the earl was 
watching him. 

“ May I ask whether you have formed any plans 
for the future ?” asked the dowager, presently. 

“No plans in particular. I think that I shall go 
and live at Brimley, at least for some time to come.” 

“ At Brimley ! Why, that is only sixteen miles 
from Bingwood.” 

“ Precisely so. We shall be neighbors. A dozen 
miles, more or less, are not of much consequence in 
the country.” 

The countess did not look over well pleased. 
“What is your object in choosing Brimley for a 
residence?” she asked. 

“ I lived near there with my father when a lad, and 
I still retain some pleasant recollections of it, so that 
the place will not seem altogether strange to me. In 
addition to which, I see from an advertisement in to- 
day’s Times that ‘ Laurel Cottage ’ there is to be let 
on lease — the very place to suit an elderly bachelor 
of limited means and unambitious tastes. I shall run 
down there to-morrow and see about it.” 

“ Well, sir, I hope that when next I see you I shall 
4 


50 


A BARREN TITLE. 


find some improvement in your toilet and general 
appearance.” 

“ Possibly, madam, possibly. I admit that there 
is some slight room for alteration, perhaps for im- 
provement. I have not followed the fashions very 
attentively of late. The state of my finances did not 
allow of my doing so.” 

“ Mr. Flicker will send you a check to-morrow.” 

“ I shall be greatly obliged to Mr. Flicker.” 

“ What a pity it is that you threw your chances to 
the dogs in the way you did when a young man.” 

“ What a pity it is that m} r cousin Charles, your 
good son, madam, could not see his way to advance me 
the three thousand pounds which was all I needed at 
that time to save me from destruction. But he but- 
toned his breeches pocket — saving your ladyship’s 
presence — and allowed me to go headlong to the 
deuce.” 

“You forget, sir, that you had had five hundred 
pounds from him only six months previously.” 

“ I forget nothing. Three thousand pounds would 
have been my salvation. I did not have the three 
thousand pounds, nor three thousand pence, and you 
see the result before you to-day.” 

“ Charles was building and planting at the time, as 
I well remember, and the sum was a much larger 
one than he could spare.” 

“ So the building and the planting went on, and 
Cousin Jack was obliged to fly like a thief in the 
night. It was the young fool’s own fault, and it was 
only right that he should suffer. So ridiculous of 
him, wasn’t it, to think that because he and Charley 


A BARREN TITLE. 


51 


had been school-fellows and like brothers for years, 
he could now ask Charley to pull him through his 
troubles? I’ve often laughed since to think what a 
young greenhorn he must have been. I’ll warrant 
you he knows the world better by this time.” 

The countess’s head was beginning to shake worse 
than ever. Flicker made a sign to the earl, and the 
latter rose. “ Good-morning, Aunt Barbara,” he said; 
“ shake hands with me for my mother’s sake if you 
won’t for my own.” 

She stared very hard at him for about half a min- 
ute, and then she extended two claw-like fingers. 
“ Get a decent coat to your back before you let me 
see you again. And — and I don’t want to see those 
gloves any more.” 

Next day “ Mr. Fildew ” received from Mr. Flicker 
a check for one hundred and fifty pounds, being 
the first quarterly instalment of his allowance at the 
rate of six hundred pounds a year. 

“Greedy old hag!” muttered the earl to himself 
as he pocketed the check. “She might just as 
easily have made it twelve hundred as six. I’ll be 
even with her for this before I’ve done with her.” 


CHAPTER YI. 


MILD LUNACY. 

“ This must be the house, Ho. 105 Cadogan Place,” 
said Clement Fildew to himself, as he stopped in 
front of an imposing-looking mansion. Taking the 
steps two at time, he gave a loud rat-tat-tat at the 
door. “ Is Miss Collumpton at home ?” he asked of 
the man who answered his knock. 

Miss Collumpton was at home. 

“ Will you give her this card, and say that I have 
called at the request of Sir Percy Jones ?” 

He was shown into a morning-room while the 
man took his message. After three or four minutes 
the door opened, and a young lady entered, dressed 
very plainly in black. As their eyes met they both 
started, and then, as if moved by a common impulse, 
they drew a step or two nearer each other, while 
Clem colored up to the roots of his hair. The young 
lady, who was by far the more self-possessed of the 
two, was the first to speak. “ Unless I am much 
mistaken,” she said, “you are the gentleman to whose 
kindness I was so greatly indebted when coming up 
to town the other day.” 

“ And you are the lady to whom I had the good- 
fortune to be of some slight service.” 

“ A slight service, do you call it ? It seemed to 


A BARREN TITLE. 


53 


me a very great service at the time. I missed you 
in the confusion at the terminus, so that my aunt 
was not able to thank you, as she would very much 
like to have done.” 

“ I certainly can’t see that any thanks were needed. 
But, putting that aside, I am very pleased to have 
met you again.” And as he said this there was a 
fire and earnestness in his eyes that in its turn 
brought a vivid blush to the young lady’s cheeks. 
“I came here at the request of Sir Percy Jones,” he 
added, “to see Miss Collumpton respecting a por- 
trait. I never expected to have iPe pleasure of 
finding you under the same roof ” 

“I have been living here for some time,” she said. 
Then to herself she added, “I wonder whom he 
takes me for — a nursery governess or a companion, 
or what ?” 

“ I hope Miss Collumpton is not a very exacting 
young lady. If she is, I am afraid that I shall scarce- 
ly be able to please her. I have painted very few 
portraits as yet, but Sir Percy was so pleased with 
the one I did of him that he declared he must have 
one of his god-daughtor to take with him when he 
goes abroad.” 

“I don’t think that you will find Miss Collumpton 
very exacting.” 

“ I am glad to hear that. I wish it was your por- 
trait I was going to paint instead of hers.” 

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, “ Why do 
you wish that ?” but, happening to glance at his face, 
she saw the same look in his eyes that had troubled 
her before. She dropped her lids and looked another 


54 


A BARREN TITLE. 


way. There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then 
she said, “ I think I had better go and fetch Miss 
Oollumpton. She promised to follow me at once;” 
and with that she got out of the room. 

Left alone, Clem went back at once to his examina- 
tion of the prints and sketches on the walls. But 
he saw them without seeing them, and could remem- 
ber nothing of them afterwards. He had caught 
Love’s fever, and the symptoms were declaring them- 
selves already. He was standing before a little 
sketch by Stanfield and smiling fatuously, as though 
there was something comical about it, which there 
certainly was not. When the patient takes to smil- 
ing in this purposeless way it is looked upon by those 
learned in such matters as a very bad sign. 

About a week previously, as he was coming up to 
town, a young lady — the young lady who had just 
left the room — got into the same carriage, a second- 
class one, at Tring, in which he was already seated. 
He was not aware that she had been driven to take 
refuge in the second-class on account of the first-class 
seats being all occupied. They were presently joined 
by a cad of a fellow, who was evidently half-drunk, 
and just as evidently determined to talk to the pretty 
girl on the opposite seat, whether she liked it or not. 
At length the annoyance reached such a pitch, and the 
lady became so plainly distressed, that Clem, whose 
blood had been simmering for some time, felt called 
upon to interfere. Thereupon the cad turned on our 
friend like a young bear, and growled out something 
about wise people minding their own business, add- 
ing a certain epithet which had better have been left 


A BARREN TITLE. 


55 


unspoken. The result was that before he knew what 
had happened he found himself lying in a heap in a 
corner of the carriage, with a discolored eye and a 
bruised nose, and a feeling as if a fifth of November 
cracker .had exploded in his head. The train was 
slackening speed at the time, and as soon as it stopped 
the wounded knight scrambled out of the carriage, 
holding his handkerchief to his nose and muttering 
something about fetching the police. But he was 
seen no more. The rest of the journey came to an 
end far too soon for Clem. When he alighted at 
Euston the young lady was at once taken possession 
of by an elderly lady, while Clem rushed off in search 
of his portmanteau. But Clem had not forgotten 
the sweet face of his travelling companion. Being 
an artist, what more natural than that he should at- 
tempt to sketch it from memory as soon as he reached 
home, and not once but twenty times. 

u What do you mean by neglecting your Academy 
picture in this way?” Tony Macer had fiercely de- 
manded three days later. “And what do you mean, 
sir, by drawing the same simpering face from morn 
till dewy eve, and grinning to yourself all the time 
like a jackass in a fit ? You’ve not been idiot enough 
to go and fall in love, have you ? By Apelles ! if I 
thought you had, I would take you vi et armis , and 
hold you under the back-kitchen tap for half an 
hour, and see whether that wouldn’t cool your fool- 
ish brain !” 

This threat of Tony must be taken cum grano , 
seeing that he was only about four feet eight inches 
high and had the arms of a girl of sixteen, whereas 


56 


A BARREN TITLE. 


his friend Clem could easily have lifted him up with 
one hand and have thrown him across the room. But 
Tony’s objurgations did Clem good, and he was fast 
regaining his interest in mutton-chops, bitter-beer, 
and the progress of his picture, when the deplorable 
meeting we have just recorded took place, and all 
hopes of his convalescence were at once scattered to 
the winds. 

The siren who was the cause of all this commo- 
tion in our young painter’s heart, having shut the 
door behind her, ran quickly up-stairs and burst into 
a tiny boudoir, where another young lady, also dressed 
in black, was sitting calmly at work. 

“Moral Mora! what do you think? This Mr. 
Clement Fildew, whom god-papa has sent here to 
paint my portrait, turns out to be the same gentle- 
man who took my part in the train the other day 
when that man insulted me so dreadfully. Is it not 
strange that we should meet again in this way, and 
so soon afterwards ?” 

“Very strange, indeed. But such coincidences 
happen oftener in real life than many people im- 
agine.” 

“But the strangest part is to come, dear. Mr. 
Fildew doesn’t take me for myself, but for you.” 

“ How can he take you for me, Cecilia, when he 
and I have never seen each other ?” 

“ I mean that he doesn’t take me for Miss Collump- 
ton. He believes me to be somebody else living urn 
der the same roof with that paragon.” 

“ But why did you not undeceive him the moment 
you discovered his mistake ?” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


57 


“I don’t intend to- undeceive him just yet, it is 
such fun to be mistaken for somebody else.” 

“But you cannot keep him in ignorance much 
longer. He has come here to take your portrait.” 

“I’ll tell you what I mean to do, Mora — it came 
into my head while I was talking to him : I mean 
to introduce you to Mr. Fildew as Cecilia Collump- 
ton and myself as Mora Browne, your companion 
and friend. He can then take your portrait as well 
as mine.” 

Miss Browne’s large blue eyes opened wide with 
astonishment. “Good gracious! Cecilia, what mad- 
cap scheme will you take into your head next?” 

“I don’t know what my next scheme will be, 
but I think this one will be immense fun, and I 
trust to your friendship to enable me to carry it 
out.” 

“ Of course you may trust me for anything ; you 
know that quite well. But what will your aunt say, 
and what, in the name of goodness, will Lady Lough- 
ton say, should either of them hear of it? They 
would never forgive me for my share in the decep- 
tion.” 

“ I don’t mean either of them to know anything 
about it. Surely you and I can keep our little plot 
to ourselves.!’ 

“ Your scheme frightens me, I must confess. It 
seems so terribly audacious.” 

“ In its audacity lies our security. Besides, what 
is there to be afraid of? You certainly look the 
heiress more than I do. And for myself, it will be a 
fresh experience — something altogether novel and de- 


58 


A BARREN TITLE, 


lightful — to be talked to and treated, not as a young 
woman with so many thousands a year, but — but — ” 

“Asher humble friend and companion,” interposed 
Miss Browne, with the slightest tinge of bitterness 
in her tone. “ As one who esteems herself passing 
rich on eighty pounds a year.” 

“Forgive me, dear,” said Cecilia, contritely. “I 
had no intention of hurting your feelings.” 

“I know it, dear, I know it. Don’t say another 
word. And now I am at your service, although I 
am afraid you have hardly considered how foolish 
we shall both look when we have to face the neces- 
sity of an explanation.” 

“ I don’t at all see why we should look foolish. 
You may leave me to arrange all that.” Miss Browne 
shook her head, but offered no further opposition in 
words. 

Cecilia Collumpton had stated no more than the 
truth when she said that Mora Browne looked far 
more like an heiress than she did — that is, taking the 
common idea of what an heiress ought to look like. 
For Mora was tall, fair, and stately, with large, lim- 
pid blue eyes and a wealth of yellow hair. Her 
figure had the ample proportions of a youthful Juno, 
but as all her movements seemed timed to slow music, 
there was no perceptible lack of harmony. She had 
a cold, clear, incisive voice, and a slight hauteur of 
manner, which in her case was not affectation, seeing 
that it was natural to her and not put on. She was 
the daughter of a rector who had ruined himself and 
his family by some mad speculations in mining shares. 
Although she was Cecilia’s dearest friend, and had 


A BARREN TITLE. 


59 


known her since girlhood, she would not come to 
live with her except on the footing of a paid com- 
panion, to whom, and by whom, a month’s notice 
could at any time be given. But none the less had 
Mora an intense detestation of poverty and all its 
surroundings, and years ago she had made up her 
mind that if she were ever to marry it should be 
only to some man of ample fortune, who could afford 
to keep her as she felt she ought to be kept. 

Cecilia Collumpton at this time was just twenty- 
two years old. She was a brunette, and rather petite 
in figure. She had a small, classically shaped head, 
a straight, clear-cut nose, and eyes of the darkest 
gray, with gleams of opaline light in them whenever 
she was at all excited. She was quick, vivacious, and 
emotional, and brimful of spirits and energy. She 
was easily imposed upon. A tale of distress brought 
tears to her eyes in a moment, and she never paused 
to inquire whether it was a reality or a sham before 
bringing out her purse. She was fond of riding, but 
loved a wild scamper across the downs far more than 
a regulation canter in the park. Her aunt called her 
“ undisciplined,” and Lady Loughton termed her “a 
hoyden,” while Slingsby Boscombe, in some verses 
he once addressed to her — the feet of which, truth 
to tell, halted so wofully that Sir Percy Jones, who 
happened to come across them one day, gave it as his 
opinion that they must have been composed by a 
cripple — wrote of her as his “ sweet wild rose,” and 
yet Slingsby had never been in love with her. 

Miss Browne, followed by Cecilia, sailed slowly 
into the room where Clement was waiting. He 


60 


A BARREN TITLE. 


broke his reverie with a start, and advanced a few 
steps to meet them. “You are Mr. Fildew ?” said 
Mora. Clem bowed. “And you have called re- 
specting a portrait which Sir Percy Jones has com- 
missioned you to paint?” 

“Yes, Sir Percy asked me to call without delay, 
as his time in England was now getting very short. 
I am desirous of knowing on what days and at what 
hours it will be convenient for you to give me the 
requisite sittings.” 

Mora put a finger to her lips, and considered for a 
moment. 

“To-day is Tuesday. Suppose we say Thursday 
next, at eleven, for the first sitting. We can arrange 
for future sittings afterwards. Will that suit you, 
Mr. Fildew?” 

“Any time will suit me, madam. On this card 
you will find the address of my studio.” 

“ I wish you to bear in mind, Mr. Fildew,” said 
Mora, as she took the card, “ that there will be two 
portraits for you to paint.” 

“ Two portraits, Miss Collumpton !” 

“Mine and that of my friend, Miss Browne. I 
have decided that w r e shall both be taken at the same 
time and in the same style.” 

“ Oh.” 

It was a sort of ecstatic sigh drawn from the 
bottom of his heart — wherever that may have been. 

The two girls glanced at .each other. 

“ I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Browne a 
few days ago,” stammered Clement. He felt that 
he was making a great idiot of himself. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


61 


“I have told Miss Collumpton,” said Cecilia, 
“how much I owed to your kindness on that occa- 
sion.” 

“ For Mora’s sake, Mr. Fildew,” said Miss Browne, 
“ I am glad to be able to thank you in person for 
the service you rendered her. She was coming up 
to town to stay with me at the time you met her.” 

“ How well she acts her part,” said Cecilia, to her- 
self, with an admiring glance at her friend. “And 
how well she would carry out such a part in real 
life.” 

Clem muttered something about the service he had 
rendered being a very slight one, after which he took 
a rather hurried leave. He was glad to get out into 
the cold, wintry afternoon. It seemed to him that 
he walked home that day as the gods of old are 
fabled to have walked — on ambient air. Surely 
those were not the cold, slushy streets of dreary, com- 
monplace London. Everything seemed as if it had 
been touched by a necromancer’s wand. 

“ Mora.” He whispered the word to himself again 
and again. What a sweet and romantic name it was! 
He did not venture to say, even to himself, that 
Mora’s surname was either sweet or romantic. But 
that surname should be changed for another, by and 
by, or he would know the reason why. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“sweet coz.” 

Clement Fildew had not left Cadogan Place 
more than half an hour when Mr. Slingsby Boscombe 
was announced. Slingsby had not seen Cecilia since 
the funeral of the young Earl of Loughton, which 
had taken place at Ringwood, the family seat, in 
Bedfordshire. Slingsby had attended as one of the 
mourners in chief. 

“ I don’t think that I was ever in poor Alexander’s 
company more than five or six times in my life,” said 
Mr. Boscombe, in answer to a question put by Cecilia. 
He was a round-faced, boyish-looking young fellow 
of two-and-twenty, with a tendency to become ab- 
normally stout even at that early age. “ The dow- 
ager never cared to cultivate our branch of the fami- 
ly over much, and I have often heard my father 
speak of her in no very friendly terms.” 

“I believe that Lady Loughton was always noted 
for having a temper of her own,” said Miss Collump- 
ton. “ I have been told that when her son’s wife 
was alive — I mean, poor Alic’s mother — she stood 
so much in awe of the dowager’s temper that she 
never would see her when the latter called at Ring- 
wood, but used to lock herself up in her own rooms 
till she was gone.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


63 


“ When Alic’s mother died, of course the dowager 
went back to Ringwood.” 

“ Yes, and there she has lived ever since, and 
would, doubtless, have continued to live, but for this 
terrible accident, till Alic got married, in which case 
I suppose she would have had to find a home else- 
where.” 

“ And very proper, too. From what little I have 
seen of her I should hardly care to live under the 
same roof with her.” 

“ And yet she must be nearly eighty years old.” 

“And looks likely to live to be a hundred. She 
is certainly a very wonderful old lady.” 

“ I used to like her very well when I went to 
Ringwood as a child, although, of course, I stood in 
great awe of her. But after that she and Aunt Per- 
cival had some words, and I have not seen her for 
several years. Fortunately I met poor Alic in the 
Park only three months ago : we had a long talk 
about old times. How little I thought that I should 
never see him again !” 

There were tears in Cecilia’s eyes, and Slingsby 
forebore to speak for a minute or two. Then he 
said, “ Do you know, Cis, my father never told me 
till a week ago what a very large slice of the Lough- 
ton property was left to me by Alic’s father in case 
Alic should die without heirs ! I was perfectly as- 
tounded. I suppose the governor’s reason for not 
speaking to me about it before was because he 
thought the chance of its coming to me seemed so 
very remote that it was not worth while troubling 
me about it in any way. But what an absurd pro- 


64 


A BARREN TITLE. 


viso is that which precludes me from touching a 
penny of it till I am twenty-five years old ! You 
can do as you like with your share, although you 
are four months younger than I, while I shall have 
to wait another three years for mine. It is really 
too ridiculous !” 

“I suppose that when Uncle Charles drew up his 
will he had an idea that boys remain boys till they 
are five-and-twenty, which, indeed, quite a number 
of them seem to do.” 

“And meanwhile I have to depend on my father 
for my income.” 

“ Instead of earning it for yourself, as so many 
other young men are obliged to do. How thankful 
you ought to be that you have such a father !” 

“ As for that, the governor says that I shall have 
plenty to do by and by in looking after the estates 
and attending to the property. I am sure that he 
works as hard as any laborer.” 

“ Then why not take some of his work on to those 
broad shoulders of yours ?” 

“ Bless you, he won’t let me have anything to do 
with the management of the property. He says it 
will be time enough for me to think about that when 
he is gone.” 

“ But you will no longer have to wait for any such 
mournful contingency. Three years will soon pass 
away, and then this Loughton property, which will 
be yours, will find you plenty to do.” 

“ And will make me my own master into the bar- 
gain, and that is by no means the most unimportant 
feature in the case. You will, perhaps, hardly credit 


A BARREN TITLE. 


65 


it, Cis, but I never knew till after Alic’s death that 
the estates were not entailed.” 

“I believe the entail was cut off about eighty 
years ago.” 

“ And a good thing for you and me that it was cut 
off ! By-the-bye. how is his new lordship supposed to 
be able to keep up the traditional state and dignity 
of an Earl of Loughton?” 

“ I believe it is. not at present known where his 
new lordship is to be found, or even whether he is 
alive or dead. If he be alive, it is quite possible 
that he may have means of his own. If it be proved 
that he is dead, I suppose we shall have to address 
you, sir, as my lord earl.” 

“ Provided the missing earl has not left a son and 
heir behind him.” 

From this it will be seen that the conversation we 
are now recording took place before that first inter- 
view between “Mr.Fildew” and the dowager countess. 

Mr. Fildew, senior, was cousin to Charles, the sev- 
enth earl, who was father of the young lord recently 
killed. Mr. Slingsby Boscombe was grandson to the 
youngest brother of the sixth earl, while Miss Col- 
lumpton was granddaughter to the only sister of the 
same nobleman. 

“It seems rather strange, doesn’t it, Cis,” resumed 
Slingsby, “ that Earl Charles should pass over his 
own cousin, the man who, if he lived, must come 
into the title in case of Alic dying without heirs, in 
favor of two such insignificant people as you and I ?” 

“ The missing earl is said to have been very wild 
and dissipated when young, and to have got at length 
5 


66 


A BARREN TITLE. 


into such dreadful difficulties that he was compelled 
to go abroad. I suppose there was a great scandal 
about it, and very probably the earl’s will was made 
about the time he felt so much annoyed at his cous- 
in’s outrageous conduct.” 

“ And this disgrace to the family has never been 
heard of since?” 

“ Not to my knowledge : most probably he is 
dead.” 

“ Even if he be, the difficulty will be to prove it.” 

Slingsby, having contemplated this difficulty in 
silence for a minute or two, said : “ Do you know, 
Cis, that my father has been badgering me again 
about that old family scheme for making you and 
me man and wife?” 

“And Lady Loughton has been stirring up my 
aunt about the same thing. They have become 
friends again since Alic’s death.” 

“ I wish they would mind their own business.” 

“So do I, with all my heart.” 

“ Do you think we care enough for each other, 
Cis, to marry.” 

“ I think it very doubtful, Slingsby, whether we 
do.” 

“ When you are told from youth upward that you 
must marry one person and no other, you naturally 
begin to rebel in your secret heart.” 

“My own feelings exactly.” 

“You know, Cis, I am very fond of you, and al- 
ways have been.” 

“ And I of you, Slingsby — in a cousinly sort of 
way.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


67 


“Just so; in a cousinly sort of way. But that’s 
hardly how a husband and wife ought to feel towards 
each other, is it?” 

“I’ve had no experience either one way or the 
other, but I should think not.” 

“Now that we so thoroughly understand each oth- 
er, may I tell you a secret, Cis?” 

“ A hundred if you like, Slingsby. Being a wom- 
an, 1 am fond of secrets.” 

“But, being a woman, can you keep one?” 

“ I’ll try. I daren’t say more than that.” 

“In an}' case I’ll trust you. I’m in love.” 

“ Slingsby ?” 

“ Desperately, devotedly in love. I — I’ve actually 
taken to writing verses, and if that’s not a sure sign 
of being in love, I should like to know what is.” 

“Is the lady any one with whom I am acquaint- 
ed?” 

“No. She’s a doctor’s daughter. She lives down 
in Hampshire, and her father’s dead.” 

“ What is she like ? Pretty, of course.” 

“Not so pretty as you, Cis.” 

“ You have no right to say that, sir. If you love 
her, as you say you do, she ought to be perfection in 
your eyes.” 

“She is perfection in my eyes, but for all that 
she’s not so pretty as you are. I don’t know,” add- 
ed Slingsby, musingly, “ that I should care to have 
a very pretty woman for my wife. I might grow 
jealous, you know, and that must be a jolly uncom- 
fortable sort of feeling.” 

“ Does your father know anything of this affair?” 


68 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ No — there’s the rub. I dare not tell him on any 
account. His heart is set on my marrying you, and 
as I’m altogether dependent on him, and shall be for 
three more years, it would never do to let him into 
the secret. But you can help me in my difficulty, 
Cis ?” 

“ In what way can I help you, Slingsby ?” 

“ By not letting any one know that there is noth- 
ing serious between you and me. You have not re- 
fused me yet, have you, because I have never made 
you an offer?” 

“No; you have certainly not made me an offer, 
and till you do that, of course I can’t refuse you.” 

“ Then, of course, I can tell my father that you 
have not refused me ; and if I were further to hint 
to him that you are hardly prepared to marry just 
yet, that you would prefer to wait, say, a year or 
eighteen months longer, would that be a very wide 
departure from the truth?” 

“ It would be no departure from the truth so far 
as I am concerned. I certainly am not prepared to 
take to myself a husband for a long time to come.” 

“You know I can continue to look in here once 
or twice a week as usual ; and perhaps you wouldn’t 
mind my being seen with you in the Bow, now and 
then, or at the opera, or the theatre ?” 

“Not at all. Come with me as often as you like. 
I have very few engagements.” 

“ And if your Aunt Percival or Lady Loughton 
should hint anything to you about our supposed en- 
gagement, could you not give them to understand 
that you and I are on excellent terms with each 


A BARREN TITLE. 


other, and that the less they interfere in the matter 
the better V ’ 

“ I certainly could do all that, although the doing 
of it would involve a certain amount of deception 
on my part.” 

“But deception that can harm nobody. If these 
worthy old souls would only leave you and me to 
look after our own happiness, there would be no oc- 
casion for subterfuge of any kind.” 

“ Then, under cover of all this, yon intend to carry 
on your flirtation with the doctor’s daughter?” 

“ It’s no flirtation, Cis, but a real downright seri- 
ous case of spoons. I’ve promised to marry her, 
and I shall do so in spite of everything. If I can 
only keep my father in the dark till I’m five-and- 
twenty, then all will come right, and with your help, 
Cis, I shall be able to do that without much diffi- 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“ GOOD-BYE.” 

“ I am rather glad to have found yon alone, Clem,” 
said Lord Loughton, as he walked into his son’s 
studio in the course of the day following that on 
which he had received Mr. Flicker’s check for a 
hundred and fifty pounds. “ I have something 
rather particular to say to you.” 

Clem knew of old that his father’s “ something 
particular” generally took the shape of a request 
for a loan, so he merely said,“Macer won’t be back 
for a couple of hours. Will you have a weed and 
some bottled ale ?” 

“ Thank you, no. I can’t stay many minutes. 
How are you progressing with your Academy pict- 
ure? That, of course, is the most important affair 
in the universe just now. I believe, if there were 
an earthquake to-morrow that swallowed up a thou- 
sand people, all that you painter fellows would do 
would be to cry, 4 Save my pictures.’ The egotism 
of art is something sublime.” 

“We dignify it with another name,” answered 
Clem, with a laugh. “With us it becomes ‘devo- 
tion to art.’” He had had too much experience of 
his father’s tirades to take much notice of them. 
“ I shall get my picture done, I suppose, and send it 


A BARREN TITLE. 


71 


in. Beyond that I know nothing. But as you 
don’t care about modern paintings, I need not bore 
you by asking your opinion of it.” 

“Well, no, it’s hardly worth while. I never see 
anything later than Sir Joshua that I care about. 
English art is dead — defunct as a door-nail.” 

“ I am glad that the people with money don’t all 
think as you do. But you had something particular 
to say to me.” 

“Yes; I am going to leave London for a time.” 

Clem suspended his brush in mid-air and stared 
at his father. 

“A friend of mine, a gentleman whom I knew 
many years ago, has just succeeded to a very large 
property. As he is obliged to reside abroad on ac- 
count ef his health, he has asked me to undertake 
the management of his affairs for a time. He has 
extensive estates in different parts of the country, 
all of which require to be carefully looked after, so 
that I shall have no fixed location for any length of 
time. For reasons which you will not ask me to ex- 
plain, I cannot give the name of my friend, nor can 
I tell you with certainty where I may be found at 
any particular date; but that will not matter, as I 
shall run up to London for a day or two to see la 
mere and you every month or six weeks. Should 
any occasion arise for you to communicate with me 
while I am away, a letter will always find me, ad- 
dressed 4 John Fildew, Esquire, Post-office, Shallow- 
ford, Northamptonshire.” You had better put the 
address down in your pocket-book so as to make 
sure of it.” 


72 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“Have you broken the news to my mother?” 
asked Clem, as he wrote down the address. 

“ Yes ; I mentioned it to her this morning, and 
though, of course, poor creature, she was rather cut 
up at first, she soon recovered her equanimity and 
agreed with me that it was all for the best. You 
see, Clem, this is just the sort of thing I have been 
looking out for for years — gentlemanly, dignified, 
not too much to do, and yet with an honorarium at- 
tached to it that, in the present state of our finances, 
we cannot afford to despise. For one thing, my 
dear boy, there will no longer be any necessity for 
my imposing on your good -nature, in addition to 
which I shall be in a position to make your mother 
an allowance of five guineas per month. I gave her 
the first five guineas this morning before Jeaving 
home.” 

“ You need not have done that, sir,” interposed 
Clem. “My mother should not have wanted for 
anything during your absence.” 

“ I am quite sure of that, my boy. But in mak- 
ing this little arrangement I feel that I am simply 
doing my duty — and what a luxury for one’s con- 
science that is !” His lordship’s conscience had not 
been used to such luxuries for a long time, and 
probably appreciated them all the more by reason 
of their rarity. 

“ In addition to my allowance of five guineas per 
mensem,” continued the earl, “your mother will 
have her own private income of fifty pounds a year, 
and will no longer have me for an encumbrance ; so 
that, all things considered, she ought to be, and 


A BARREN TITLE. 


73 


doubtless will be, tolerably comfortable. There is 
one thing, however, Clem, that she wishes you to do. 
After I am gone she would like you to go back and 
sleep in your old room. She is rather timorous, 
poor thing, at the thought of being left alone.” 

“ Of course I shall do that, sir,” said Clem. 

“Then I need not detain you longer. If you 
have half an hour to spare this evening before your 
mother’s bedtime, look in and we will talk these 
matters over more in extenso.” And extending a 
couple of fingers to his son and nodding a good- 
morning, the earl went, leaving Clem at a loss 
whether to be more pleased or sorry at what he had 
just heard. 

The private income of fifty pounds a year to 
which Lord Loughton had referred when speaking 
of his wife was all that was now left of the fortune 
he had received with her on her wedding-day. It 
would hardly be too much to say that it was on ac- 
count of that fortune he had married her. She was 
an orphan, the daughter of English parents who had 
emigrated to America. Her father had been origi- 
nally a poor man, but had made a fortune during the 
last three or four years of his life. She fell in love 
with the handsome English scapegrace at a board- 
ing-house where they happened to meet, and being 
her own mistress and well-to-do, and divining that 
he was poor — how poor she did not know till after- 
wards — she was not long in letting him see the pref- 
erence which she felt for him. He, on his side, 
when once satisfied that her fortune was not a myth, 
was an ardent lover enough, and at the end of a few 


74 


A BARREN TITLE. 


weeks they were married. Not till the wedding 
morn did the bride know that her husband’s name 
was not John Fildew, but John Marmaduke Lorri- 
more, and that same evening she was made to take 
a solemn oath never to divulge to living soul the 
secret of her husband’s real name. So faithfully 
had the promise then given been kept that not even 
her own son had the remotest suspicion that the 
name he called himself by was not his own. As 
years slipped away Mrs. Fildew’s fortune also slipped 
away, till nothing of it was left save the aforesaid 
fifty pounds per year, the principal of which neither 
she nor her husband could touch. With the strug- 
gling, poverty-stricken years that followed when the 
bulk of the fortune was gone we have nothing here 
to do. 

It was owing to Clem’s persuasions that his father 
and mother had at length agreed to remove all the 
way from Long Island to London. The lad had de- 
veloped a remarkable talent for painting, but had 
got the idea into his head that he could have better 
instruction and make more rapid progress in Lon- 
don than elsewhere. But, in addition to that, Mr. 
Fildew, senior, was heartily sick of the States. So 
to London they had come, and there they had lived 
ever since. Clem, what with painting and what 
with drawing on wood for the magazines, was slowly 
but surely making his way, and was not only able to 
keep himself — in very modest style, it is true — but 
could also spare his father a pound a week for 
pocket-money. WJiat he did in the way of helping 
his mother at odd times was known to no one but 


A BARREN TITLE. 


75 


him and her. He had lived at home till home was 
no longer comfortable for him ; and even his mother 
had at length urged him to go into lodgings on his 
own account. That mother, whom he loved so well, 
was slowly but surely dying of an incurable com- 
plaint. She had been ill for years, and might be ill 
for years longer, before the end came ; but that it 
was surely coming both she and those about her 
knew full well. And this knowledge it was that 
made the one great trouble of Clem’s life. 

The earl felt that he had much to do before his 
departure from London. After again seeing his son 
in the evening, but without giving him many more 
details as to his future proceedings than he had 
given him in the morning, he set out for the Brown 
Bear. This would be his last evening at the old 
haunt for a long time to come, if not forever; and 
when he called to mind the many pleasant hours he 
had spent in the little coffee-room, he felt quite sen- 
timental — far more sentimental than he had felt at 
the thought of parting from his wife and son. 

There was an extraordinary muster at the Brown 
Bear this evening, it having got noised about that it 
was Mr. Fildew’s farewell visit. As a consequence, 
Mr. Fildew had to enter into particulars, which he 
detested doing, as to the why and the wherefore of 
his going away. He told them the same story that 
he had told to his son, with certain variations, the 
gist of it being that a very old friend of his had 
come into a large fortune and needed his, Mr. Fil- 
dew’s, services as guide, philosopher, and friend. 

Mr. Nutt was unanimously voted into the chair, 


76 


A BARREN TITLE. 


and a very pleasant and convivial evening followed. 
Mr. Fildew’s health was drunk with musical honors, 
to which “His Grace” responded in a few well- 
chosen sentences, and wound up by ordering the 
landlord to bring in his biggest punch-bowl tilled to 
the brim. On the heels of tne first bowl came 
another; and when twelve o’clock struck several of 
the gentlemen present were hardly in a condition to 
find their way unaided to their homes, so that, as 
several of them afterwards averred, it was one of the 
pleasantest evenings they ever remembered to have 
spent. 

At dusk, next afternoon, Lord Loughton bade 
farewell to his humble lodgings. His last words to 
his wife were to the effect that she might expect to 
see him again in three weeks or a month. Clem’s 
offer to accompany him to the station was firmly 
negatived. However, Clem saw him into the cab, 
and heard him give instructions to be driven to 
King’s Cross. Then there was a last wave of the 
hand and he was gone. 


CHAPTER IX. 

TRANSFORMATION. 


When the Earl of Loughton left home in a four- 
wheeled cab it was by no means his intention to 
drive direct to the railway. His first stopping-place, 
as soon as he got clear of the neighborhood where he 
was known, was at a French hairdresser’s. When he 
came out of the shop, half an hour later, the cabman 
did not recognize him till he spoke. He had gone 
into the shop with a wild tangle of hair, beard, and 
mustache about his face, neck, and throat. He came 
out with his hair cropped after the military style, and 
with his face close shaved except for an imperial, and 
a thick, drooping mustache with carefully waxed tips, 
both of which had been artistically dyed. From the 
hairdresser’s he drove to a certain well-known out- 
fitting emporium, and here the transformation pre* 
viously begun was consummated. Again the cabman 
opened his eyes, this time very wide indeed. His 
exceedingly shabby fare, respecting whose ability to 
pay him his legal charge he might well have had 
some reasonable doubts, was transformed into a mili- 
tary-looking, middle-aged gentleman (most people 
would have taken him for an officer in mufti), in a 
suit of well-fitting dark tweed, and an ulster. The 
frayed black satin stock and the patched boots had 


78 


A BARREN TITLE. 


disappeared with the rest, and when his fare with 
delicately gloved hand drew forth a snowy handker- 
chief, and a celestial odor of Frangipanni was wafted 
to his nostrils, the man could only touch his hat and 
say, in a sort of awed whisper, “ Where to next, col- 
onel?” Had he been bidden to drive to Hades he 
could hardly have wondered more. 

The earl slept that night at the Great Northern 
Hotel, and went down to Brimley next morning after 
a late breakfast. He took up his quarters for the 
time being at the Duke’s Head, the only really 
good hotel in the little town. Everybody was anx- 
ious to see the new Lord Loughton, concerning whose 
early life and long disappearance from the world 
many romantic tales were afloat, and he was just as 
willing to let himself be seen. For the first week 
or two he derived an almost childlike pleasure from 
hearing himself addressed as “my lord” and “your 
lordship,” and from being the recipient of that adu- 
lation, mingled with a mild sort of awe, with which 
a nobleman is almost always regarded in small pro- 
vincial towns. Twenty times a day he would gaze 
admiringly at the reflection of himself in the cheval- 
glass in his bedroom. He could hardly believe it 
was John Fildew of Havfield Street, that shabby, 
bepatched individual, who smiled back at him from 
the glass. “ And yet I am just the same that I was 
before,” he said to himself with a sneer. “ The only 
change in me is that which the barber and the tailor 
have effected.” 

He had several suits of clothes sent down after 
him, and he took a boyish pleasure in frequently 


A BARREN TITLE. 


79 


changing them. He always dressed for dinner, al- 
though there was no one to dine with him. When 
a young man he had been noted for his white hands, 
and he was determined that they should be white 
again, to which end he smeared them every night 
with some sort of unguent and slept in kid gloves. 
Every morning he measured himself carefully round 
the waist, and when at the end of a fortnight he 
found that his convexity in that region was less by 
three quarters of an inch, he felt as if he could go 
out into the street and play leap-frog with the boys. 
He had made up his mind from the first to go in for 
popularity. With the change in his fortunes he had 
in a great measure dropped that curt, sneering, cyni- 
cal manner which had not contributed to render him 
popular in days gone by. There was now an easy 
condescension, a sort of genial affability, about him 
which charmed every one with whom he came in con- 
tact ; but then, how little is needed to make us feel 
charmed with a lord ! Everybody knew that he was 
poor — how poor they did not know — but everybody 
knew also that he was an earl, and as earls, even 
when their antecedents are somewhat shady, are no 
more plentiful than green pease in December, we are 
bound to make much of such as we have. 

The news of Lord Lough ton’s sojourn at Brimley 
spread far and wide through the county, and he need 
never have lacked company had he been so minded. 
Nearly all the best families in the neighborhood left 
their cards, and he might have had a dozen visitors 
a day had he not given it out that he did not intend 
to see any one till he was safely housed in his new home. 


80 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Laurel Cottage was not much of a place for a peer 
to take up his abode in, but even peers must live ac- 
cording to their means. It was a little, white, two- 
storied house, containing only eight or nine rooms in 
all. Its front windows looked on to a circular grass- 
plot and a tiny carriage drive that opened from the 
main road. From its back windows could be seen a 
lawn, bordered by a terrace, and interspersed with 
clumps of flowers, with meadow after meadow be- 
yond. Stable and coach-house were hidden away 
behind a shrubbery to the left. 

Such as it was it was quite big enough for the 
needs of Lord Loughton, and he at once secured it. 
There was one stipulation connected with the letting 
of it which posed him for a moment, but for a mo- 
ment only. It was a sine qua non that the substan- 
tial, old-fashioned furniture should be taken at a 
valuation by the incoming tenant. The valuation 
was fixed at two hundred pounds. To this the earl, 
when he had walked slowly through the rooms, made 
no demur. The same evening he wrote as under to 
the dowager countess : 


‘ * My dear Aunt —I have taken Laurel Cottage, near this place, 
for a term of years, as I told you that I should do. It contains 
nine rooms. The rent is £60 a year, and it will suit me ad- 
mirably. But I could not obtain possession till I agreed to take 
the furniture, which has been valued at £200. As it was an im- 
possibility to live in a house without furniture, the opportunity 
seemed to me too good a one to be missed. Will you therefore 
kindly send me a check for the amount in question as early as 
possible, and oblige, 

“ Your affectionate nephew, 

“Loughton.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


81 


After three days came the following laconic 
reply : 

“ Check for £200 enclosed, but don’t do this sort of thing 
again. Ah agreement is an agreement, and no further demands 
beyond the usual allowance will receive attention.” 

The letter was undated and unsigned, but it was 
evidently in the countess’s own writing. A few days 
later the earl removed to his new home. 

He started his modest establishment with two 
women and one man servant. A gardener was en- 
gaged to come once a week to attend to the lawn 
and flowers. When the earl had paid his hotel bill 
and a few other expenses he found that upwards of 
two thirds of his £150 had gone already, while more 
than two months of the quarter had yet to run. But 
this did not trouble him. He calculated, and rightly, 
that when once he w r as established in Laurel Cottage 
he might go on credit for everything he wanted for 
several months to come. As a matter of fact, he was 
inundated with offers from tradespeople of all kinds, 
so that his only difficulty lay in choosing which of 
them he should patronize. Even horses and carriages 
were pressed on him, but he decided that for the 
present both stable and coach-house should remain 
empty. He might, perhaps, have afforded to buy a 
cheap cob if an opportunity for doing so had offered 
itself ; however, there would be time enough to think 
about such luxuries by and by. But in this matter, 
as in most others, he was probably actuated by some 
motive other than appeared on the surface. 

Long before the earl had got quietly settled down 
one carriage after another came flashing up to the 
6 


82 


A BARREN TITLE. 


little green gate of Laurel Cottage. His lordship 
was at home to everybody that called. Everybody 
was charmed with his affability and the simple kind- 
liness of his demeanor. “ What delightful manners !” 
exclaimed the ladies, with one accord. “ What ease 
and polished courtesy ! A thorough man of the 
world, evidently.” Could these fair dames have seen 
his lordship six weeks previously, as he sat behind a 
long pipe in the coffee-room of the B. B., with his 
brandy-and-water in front of him, what would their 
thoughts of him have been ? 

Calls, as a matter of course, were succeeded by 
pressing invitations to dinner. But the earl frankly 
pleaded his poverty; in fact, he almost made a parade 
of it before his newly found friends. “ You say that 
you live three miles away. Pray tell me how I am 
to reach you when I have neither a hoof nor a wheel 
on the premises.” Then, of course, came offers to 
send the brougham or other conveyance for him, 
which, equally as a matter of course, involved the 
sending of him home when the evening was at an 
end. For the earl had made up his mind that if 
people wanted him they must both send for him and 
send him back, and before long this necessity came 
to be accepted as a well-understood fact among those 
whom he honored with his company. 

The vicar of the parish was one of the first to call 
at Laurel Cottage. Before leaving he expressed a 
hope that he should occasionally see his lordship at 
church, and his lordship was good enough to promise 
that next Sunday morning should find him in the 
vicar’s pew. It was quite a novel sensation for the 


A BARREN TITLE. 


83 


earl to find himself inside a place of worship. The 
vicar’s wife handed him an elegantly bound, large- 
print prayer-book, which he accepted with a smile 
and a little bow, but when he tried to follow the 
service and find the different places he got “terri- 
bly fogged,” as he afterwards expressed it; and as he 
was afraid to let people see the dilemma he was in, 
he shut the prayer-book up altogether by and by, and 
tried to put on the air of a man who was so thoroughly 
familiar with the service that the book was rather an 
encumbrance to him than otherwise. “The places 
used to be easy enough to find when I was a lad,” he 
muttered to himself ; “ but I suppose the Rubric has 
been altered since then, and evidently altered for the 
worse.” 

He had been rather dubious on his arrival at Brim- 
ley whether some of the very big people of the neigh- 
borhood might not still bear in mind some of the 
escapades of his early years, and decline to acknowl- 
edge him. But his uneasiness on this score was 
quickly dispelled. A new generation had grown 
up since he was a young man, and whatever any 
of the older people might remember, they held 
their tongues in public, and welcomed him as warmly 
as if he were the most immaculate of men and 
peers. 

The nearest house to Laurel Cottage was a large red- 
brick mansion of modern erection and imposing ap- 
pearance. It bore the dignified name of Bourbon 
House, from the fact of a certain French prince hav- 
ing at one time made it his home for a few months. 
As the earl was passing the lodge gates one day a 


84 


A BARREN TITLE. 


basket- carriage containing two very pretty young 
ladies was coming out. It then struck him for the 
first time that he had never been at the trouble to 
inquire who lived at Bourbon House, neither could 
he call to mind that any one from there had ever 
left a card at the Cottage. As soon as he reached 
home he sent for his man and questioned him. It 
then came out that Bourbon House was the home of 
a certain Mr. Orlando Larkins and his two sisters — 
the pretty girls whom the earl had remarked. The 
youthful Orlando, it appeared, was the son of a cele- 
brated father — Larkins jplre having been none other 
than the inventor and vender of a certain world- 
famed pill. Everybody has heard of Larkins’s pills, 
and hundreds of thousands of people have swallowed 
them. As the result, Mr. Larkins, senior, amassed 
a very comfortable fortune, which he more than 
doubled by certain lucky speculations. Having done 
this, there was nothing left him to do but to die; so 
die he did, and Orlando reigned in his stead. “He’s 
said to be very rich, and he’s nothing to do with the 
pill trade now, my lord,” concluded the man. “ He’s 
a good-natured, sappy sort o’ young gentleman ; but 
somehow the swell people about here don’t seem 
to take to him, and even the lads shout after him, 
‘ How are you, young Pillbox V when he goes riding 
into the town.” 

“Very rich and very good-natured, and not re- 
ceived into society,” said the earl to himself. “ It 
might, perhaps, answer my purpose to cultivate the 
acquaintance of Mr. Orlando Larkins.” 


CHAPTER X. 


INFATUATION. 

At a quarter-past eleven on the morning of the 
Thursday following Clement Fildew’s visit to Cado- 
gan Place, Mrs. Percival’s brougham stopped at the 
corner of Elm Street, Soho, and from it alighted 
Miss Collumpton and Miss Browne. They were not 
long in finding No. 19, and when, in answer to their 
ring, the door opened apparently of its own accord, 
they might have been puzzled what to do next had 
not Clement come rushing down-stairs and piloted 
them the way they were to go. 

Tony Macer had gone out in deep dudgeon. He 
was disgusted with Clem for having engaged himself 
to paint a couple of portraits when he ought to be 
devoting the whole of his attention to putting the 
finishing touches to his Academy picture. Indeed, 
Tony, who had a great opinion of Clem’s abilities, 
did not like the idea of his friend taking to portrait- 
painting at all. “ You will only spoil yourself for 
better work,” he kept repeating. “ Why should you 
fritter away your time in painting the commonplace 
features of a couple of nobodies? You had better 
set up as a photographer at once.” 

“ Only these two,” Clem had pleaded. “ When I 
have finished these I won’t try my hand at another 
portrait for a whole year.” 


86 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Mr. Macer having ascertained at what hour the 
ladies were expected to arrive, set off growlingly for 
Hampstead in company with his sketch-book and his 
pipe. 

“ And this is a studio !” exclaimed Cecilia, as she 
halted for a moment on the threshold and looked 
round. “ What a very strange place !” 

“ I hope you did not expect to find any halls of 
dazzling light,” said Clem, with a laugh. “ If so, it 
is a pity that you should be disenchanted. A poor 
painter’s workshop is necessarily a poor sort of 
place.” 

“ I think it quite delightful, and I like it im- 
mensely. So thoroughly unconventional, is it not?” 
she added, turning to Miss Browne. “ For my part, 
I’m tired of drawing-rooms and fine furniture. One 
can breathe here.” 

Clem had nailed down a square of green baize on 
one part of the floor and had hired a couple of chairs 
and a few “ properties” from Wardour Street. Miss 
Browne walked across the floor in her slow, stately 
way, and seated herself on one of the chairs. To her 
the studio was nothing but a dingy, commonplace 
room. How to arrange her draperies most effectively 
for the forthcoming sitting was the subject of para- 
mount importance in her thoughts just now. She 
wore a pearl-gray satin robe this morning. She 
hoped that Mr. Fildew was clever at painting 
satin. 

“ Are both these pictures yours, Mr. Fildew ?” 
asked Cecilia, pointing to two covered-up canvases 
standing on easels in the middle of the room. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


87 


“ No. That one is my friend Macer’s ; this one 
is mine.” 

“ If I am very good and promise not to make a 
noise or ask too many questions, may I see them, 
Mr. Fildew — both of them ?” 

“ Certainly you may see them, Miss Browne, and 
that without making a promise of any kind. But I 
must warn you that neither of them is finished, and 
must therefore deprecate any severe criticism.” 

“ I don’t want to criticise them, but simply to see 
them,” said Cecilia, as Clem flung back the cover- 
ings. 

She looked at Tony’s picture first. After con- 
templating it in silence for a little while, she said 
softly, and more as if talking to herself than to 
Clem, “ I think that I should like to know Mr. Ma- 
cer.” Then she passed on to Clem’s picture. But 
she had not looked at it more than half a minute 
before she discovered that one of the two faces de- 
picted in it was an exact reproduction of her own. 
Sly Master Clem had painted her portrait from mem- 
ory, and had stuck it into his picture. The warm 
color mounted to Cecilia’s face, her eyes dropped, 
and she turned away without a word. 

Clem readjusted the coverings, and when he 
turned Cecilia was sitting in the chair next to Miss 
Browne’s, apparently immersed in the pages of 
Punch . 

Clem got his colors, brushes, and palette, with the 
view of immediately setting to work. He had al- 
ready planted his easel on the spot where he in- 
tended it to stand. The cause of Cecilia’s blush had 


88 


A BARREN TITLE. 


been patent to him in a moment, and, while sorry to 
think that his audacity might possibly have annoyed 
her, he yet could not help feeling flattered by the 
fact of her having so quickly recognized her own 
likeness. “ I have scared her a little,” he said to 
himself. So for the present he addressed himself 
exclusively to Miss Browne, of course under the mis- 
taken belief that she was Miss Collumpton, posing 
her and arranging her so as to suit best with his 
ideas of artistic effect. 

Three quarters of an hour passed quickly, and then 
Miss Browne declared that she was tired. All this 
time Cecilia had scarcely spoken. “ Now, Mora, 
dear, it’s your turn,” said Miss Browne to Cecilia. 

“ I am ready any time.” Then it was her turn to 
be posed and arranged. For a little while no one 
spoke. Then Cecilia said, “ Are both those pictures 
destined for the Academy, Mr. Fildew V 

“ That is their destination if the Hanging Com- 
mittee will deign to find room for them.” 

“ Then, of course, they are intended for sale ?” 

“ But whether they will find purchasers is another 
matter,” answered Clement, with a shrug. 

Cecilia said no more, and Mora, seeing that she 
was disinclined for talking, exerted herself for once, 
and kept up a desultory conversation with Clem till 
the sitting came to an end.* Then the ladies went. 
There was no sign of lingering vexation or annoy- 
ance in Cecilia’s way of bidding Clem good-morning, 
but she took care not to lift her eyes to his while 
she did so. The next sitting was fixed for the fol- 
lowing Monday. 


A BARKEN TITLE. 


One, two, three sittings followed in rapid succes- 
sion. Cecilia’s brightness and gayety did not long 
desert her. She chattered with Clem as easily and 
lightly as at first, only she never alluded to the 
Academy pictures. When the third sitting was over, 
just as Cecilia was leaving the room, Clem slipped a 
brief note into her hand. Her fingers closed over 
it instinctively. She and Mora were to have called 
at several other places before going home, but Ce- 
cilia pleaded a headache, and they drove back direct 
to Cadogan Place. 

After two hours spent in her own room, Cecilia 
went down-stairs. But she was restless and uneasy, 
and seemed unable to settle to anything for many 
minutes at a time. Sketching, reading, needle- 
work were each tried in turn, and each in turn dis- 
carded. Several times Mora looked at her with in- 
quiring eyes, but said nothing. Twice her aunt said, 
“ Cecilia, I do wish you wouldn’t fidget so ; you are 
as bad as any child of six.” 

The ladies dined early when they had no com- 
pany. After dinner Mrs. Percival went out. The 
two girls sat by themselves in the drawing-room. 
By and by Mora went to the piano and began to 
play. Cecilia sat and looked into the fire and lis- 
tened, or, without listening, felt, half-unconsciously, 
the sweet influence of the music steal into her 
senses. Then the twilight deepened, and Binks 
came in and lighted the lamps. But still Mora went 
on playing, and still Cecilia sat and gazed dreamily 
into the fire. 

By and by Mora looked round and saw that she 


90 


A BARREN TITLE. 


was alone. Cecilia had slipped through the curtains 
that shrouded one end of the room from the con- 
servatory beyond. There was just enough light in 
the conservatory to enable Mora to see Cecilia as she 
sat among the orange-trees at the foot of a statue of 
Silence, that loomed white and ghost-like above her. 
Mora knelt by her friend and took one of Cecilia’s 
hands in hers and pressed it to her lips. “ What is 
it, darling?” she whispered. “Tell me what it is 
that is troubling you.” Cold and calculating in 
many ways as Mora Browne might be, there was at 
least one sweet, unselfish impulse in her heart, and 
that was her love for Cecilia Collnmpton. 

Cecilia responded to her friend’s question by 
stooping and kissing her. Then she whispered — but 
it was a whisper so faint that if the statue bending 
over her with its white finger on its white lips had 
been endowed with life it could not have overheard 
what she said — “ He has written to me and told me 
that he loves me !” 

Mora started, but Cecilia’s arms held her fast and 
would not let her go. “Who has written to you? 
Hot Mr. Fildew?” 

“ Yes — Mr. Fildew.” 

“ How sorry I am to hear this !” 

“ I am not sorry.” 

“ You don’t mean to say that — ” 

“ Yes, I do. Why not ?” Then Cecilia’s arms 
were loosened, and Mora rose to her feet. 

“ Oh, Cecilia, I cannot tell you how grieved I am 
that I ever was a party to this deception !” 

“ Why should you be grieved, Mora ?” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


91 


“ Because if Mr. Fildew had been told from the 
first who yon were, this terrible business would nev- 
er have happened.” 

“ I am not so sure of that. Men are sometimes 
very audacious. But it is no such terrible business 
after all.” 

“ To me it certainly seems so, and I shall never 
forgive myself for helping to bring it about.” 

“ And I can never be sufficiently grateful to you 
for the share you have had in it.” 

“ This is infatuation, Cecilia. But don’t, pray 
don’t, tell me that you have any thought of encour- 
aging Mr. Fildew’s attentions.” 

“ Encouraging his attentions! What phrases are 
these, Mora ? Did I not tell you just now that — 
that Mr. Fildew has told me that he loves me, and 
did I not give you to understand that I care for him 
in return ?” 

“ How wretched you make me feel ! But you 
have not told him that you return his love?” 

“Not one syllable has he heard from my lips.” 

“ Then it is not too late to undo all this.” 

“ I don’t understand you, dear.” 

“You have never spoken to him — you have given 
him no encouragement — he knows nothing of your 
infatuation. Such being the case, he need never 
know. We will go to his studio no more. Some 
other artist shall paint your portrait. Mr. Fildew 
shall be quietly dropped, and in few weeks you will 
have forgotten that any such person had an existence 
in your thoughts.” 

Cecilia laughed, but there was a ring of bitterness 


92 


A BARREN TITLE. 


in her mirth. “ I might be listening to the maxims 
of Lady Loughton or my Aunt Percival,” she said. 
“ But you have never loved, therefore I cannot ex- 
pect you to sympathize with me.” 

“But you certainly would not marry this man, 
Cecilia?” 

44 I have never thought of marrying either 4 this 
man,’ as you call him, or any other man. But I cer- 
tainly should not marry any one unless I did love 
him.” 

44 1 consider it a great impertinence on the part of 
Mr. Fildew to have addressed you at all.” 

44 In what way is it an impertinence, Mora ? How- 
ever much we poor women may care for a man we 
cannot write to him and tell him so. We must wait 
till it pleases him to write or speak. Mr. Fildew is 
an artist and a gentleman. Perhaps I should not be 
far wrong in calling him a man of genius. It is I 
who ought to feel honored by the love of such a 
man.” 

44 1 cannot think where you contrive to pick up 
your strange ideas.” 

44 Strange ideas, indeed ! Why, Mora, with all my 
love for you, I believe you are one of those women 
who would rather marry a dunderhead with ten 
thousand a year than a Milton in a ragged coat.” 

44 1 certainly should not care for love in a garret, 
even with one of your so-called men of genius. 
And as for Milton, from what I have read of him, 
he was not one of the most agreeable of men to live 
with.” 

44 The author of 4 Paradise Lost ’ agreeable ! Oh, 


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93 


Mora, Mora ! have you no sense of the incongru- 
ous?” With this Cecilia rose, and putting her arm 
in Miss Browne’s, went back into the drawing-room. 

“ Since papa died I have not felt so unhappy as I 
do to-night,” said Mora, presently. 

“ And I never so happy in my life.” Then, turn- 
ing to kiss her friend for good-night, Cecilia added, 
“There is one thing to be said ; he is not making 
love to me because I am rich, and that, with me, goes 
for much. There is another thing to be said,” she 
added, in a whisper; “he has asked me to meet 
him.” 

“ An appointment ! Oh, Cecilia !” 

“ Yes, an appointment. Why not?” 

“ But — ” 

“Not another word,” said Cecilia, smilingly laying 
her hand on Mora’s lips. “ You have heard enough 
to fill your thoughts for a little while. Good-night 
and happy dreams.” 

Next morning Miss Browne was called away by a 
telegram. Her mother was seriously ill. 

There was no opportunity before she went for any 
more confidences between Cecilia and herself. 


CHAPTER XI. 


CONFIDENTIAL. 

Letter from Miss Collttmpton, in London, to Miss Browne, in 
the country. 

“ My dearest Mora, — Your telegram of yesterday, followed 
by your letter, which came to hand this morning, was a great 
relief to our anxiety. Pray give our joint love (Aunt Perci- 
val’s and mine) to your dear mother, and say how happy it has 
made us to hear of such a decided change for the better. 

“Had you not in your letter made a special point of asking 
me to furnish you with all particulars anent a certain affair, I 
should not have thought of troubling you at a time like the 
present. As, however, you want ‘to know, you know,’ I shall 
be glad to do my best to satisfy your curiosity. 

‘ ‘ If you remember, dear, you seemed terribly shocked at the 
idea of Mr. Fildew having asked me to meet him. And yet, 
what else could the poor man do ? Pray bear in mind that in 
his eyes I am only an indigent young lady, who earns her living 
by filling the post of companion to a rich young lady. He 
could not come to Cadogan Place and ask for me. He knows 
nothing of my friends and connections. Having very foolishly 
fallen in love with me, how else was he to plead his cause, how 
else say all that he wanted to say? I have no expectation of 
making a convert of you, simply because this is one of those 
questions that you and I look at from totally different points of 
view. In the first place, you would never fall in love with an 
artist— at least, not with one who, like Mr. Fildew, had still his 
way to fight; in the second place, you would never give any 
man who had not an assured income the slightest encourage- 
ment to fall in love with you. Still, without hoping that any- 
thing I can say will induce you to modify your views, I must, 
in justice to myself, put down some of the reasons by which I 
have been influenced in doing as I have done. All through the 


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affair I have argued with myself in this wise : Supposing I 
were really a poor girl who was earning her living in a shop or 
a warehouse, or it matters not how, and Clement had fallen in 
love with me, what form would our courtship have taken ? how 
and where should we have seen each other? and so on. Thou- 
sands of such courtships are going on around us every day. It 
was only to imagine that Cis Collumpton had lost the whole of 
her fortune, or had never had any to lose. In short, I wanted 
to he loved for myself alone ; I wanted to be courted as if I 
were a girl without a ‘ tocher. ’ 

“ Well, I met him by appointment at seven o’clock one even- 
ing, in a quiet crescent not far from Sloane Street. He lifted 
his hat, shook hands, and said how pleased he was to see me. 
Then he put my hand under his arm, and so took possession of 
me. ‘We can talk better thus,’ he said; ‘I have something 
particular to say to you ; besides, I want to have you as close to 
me as possible.’ 

“ Would you believe it, Mora, I seemed to have altogether 
‘ lost my tongue,’ as we used to say when I was a little girl. 
For aught I had to say for myself, I might have been brought 
up in the farthest Hebrides. However, he did not seem to 
mind whether I answered him or not; he had taken me into cus- 
tody, as it were, and I had no power to resist — nor any inclina- 
tion either, for the matter of that. 

“He began by apologizing for the liberty he had taken in 
asking me to meet him; ‘ but as you are here,’ he added, ‘ I may, 
perhaps, hope that I have not transgressed beyond forgiveness; 
although, indeed,’ he went on, ‘I knew of no other mode of ob- 
taining an opportunity of saying all that I want to say.’ Still 
I was tongue-tied, still the words refused to come. The next 
ten minutes were the most memorable of my life. How my 
heart beat ! how his words thrilled me from head to foot ! What 
he said you can perhaps faintly imagine ; if you cannot, I can- 
not tell you. 

“ He pressed me for an answer. Then my tongue was loos- 
ened. It would not be worth while to put down here what I 
said, even if I could do so, which I very much doubt. The result 
was that I promised to meet him again the following Friday 
evening at the same time and place, and give him an answer of 
some kind. 


96 


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“What that answer would be was a foregone conclusion from 
the first. I might just as well have said ‘ Yes ’ then and there, 
but that I would not have him think I was to be quite so easily 
won. He pressed my hand to his lips at parting. I left him 
at the corner at which I had met him, and ran nearly all the 
way home. Of course, dear, you may be sure that the first 
thing I did when I found myself alone was to have a good cry. 
But what happy tears they were ! From all which you will 
understand that your poor Cecilia’s case is a desperate one in- 
deed. 

“ How the time passed till Friday came round T. hardly know. 
I wanted it to come and yet I didn’t, if you can understand 
such a paradox. I longed and yet I trembled, and when Fri- 
day evening was really here I wished it were only Thursday. 
However, I met him as agreed, and was again taken possession 
of. ‘ I am afraid you are cold,’ he said. ‘You ought to have 
wrapped yourself up more warmly.’ I was trembling a little, 
but not with cold. We walked slowly along, and for some 
minutes Clement said very little. I think he saw that I was 
put out, and he was giving me time to recover myself. At 
length my hand ceased to tremble, and then he spoke, asking 
me whether I had thought over his words — whether I felt that 
I could accept his love and give him mine in return? A church 
clock was beginning to strike eight as he finished speaking. 
Not till the last stroke had ceased to reverberate did I make any 
reply. Then for answer I laid one of my hands softly on one 
of his. ‘God bless you, dear one!’ he said. ‘May you never 
regret the gift you have given me to-night.’ Then, before I 
knew what had happened, a strong arm was passed round my 
waist and Clement’s lips were pressed to mine. A lamp was no 
great distance off and a policeman was passing at the moment. 
The man turned his head and coughed discreetly behind his 
hand. I turned hot all over, but Clement only laughed, and said 
it would not have mattered if all the world had been there to see. 

“After that we had a long, delicious walk through quiet 
streets and squares where there were few passers-by. Tnere 
was a sweet, new feeling at my heart of belonging to some one 
and of some one belonging to me. Clement asked whether he 
should write to or see my father. Then I told him that I was 
an orphan and my own mistress. ‘ In that case our marriage 


A BARREN TITLE. 


need not be long delayed,’ he said. This frightened me. I had 
never contemplated such a contingency except as something 
very remote and far-off indeed. After that he began to talk to 
me about his position and prospects. He was far from rich at 
present, he said, and could not give me such a home as he 
would have liked ; but he hoped to be better off by and by. He 
was getting higher prices for his pictures, and people were be- 
ginning to seek him out. If only his Academy picture found 
a purchaser there was no reason why we should not be married 
before midsummer. Knowing what I did, I could have clapped 
my hands for glee as I listened to him. I said I was afraid 
that I could not make arrangements to be married before Christ- 
mas at the very soonest. I could see that he was disappointed. 
* I shall certainly hold 3 r ou to midsummer, ’ he said, ‘ unless you 
can give some good and valid reason for delay. ’ 

“ ‘ You must come and see my mother before you are many 
days older,’ he said, presently. f I have spoken to her about 
you already.’ Would you believe it, Mora, a little jealous pang 
shot through my heart when he said this? I felt as if I did not 
want even a mother to come between him and me. But next 
moment I put away the thought as utterly unworthy, and said 
how pleased I should be to see and know Mrs. Fildew. 

“Then he told me that his mother had been an invalid for 
years, and that there was no hope of her ever being any better. 
He told me, too, how cheerful she was — how bravely she bore 
up against the insidious disease that was slowly but surely eat- 
ing away her life. I hated myself for allowing even a moment’s 
jealous feeling to find room in my heart. I would try to love 
her as much as Clement loved her; but what if she should turn 
against me and say that her son’s choice was a foolish one? 

“This evening Clement would insist on walking with me 
nearly to the door. I was in mortal fear lest my aunt should 
chance to be passing and should recognize me. But nothing 
happened except that, w'hen the moment came for saying good- 
night, Clement repeated the process which had frightened me 
so much before. But I don’t think that even a policeman saw 
us this time : still I must admit that it was very dreadful. All 
that night I hardly slept a wink. I felt that I had taken the 
great, irrevocable step of my life. Did I regret it? you will 
perhaps ask. No; a thousand times no! 

7 


A BARREN TITLE. 


S8 


“ It was arranged that at our next meeting I should accompany 
Clement to his mother’s to tea. Mrs. Fildew’s hour for tea is 
six o’clock, from which you will at once infer that she belongs 
to the old school, and having grown up when people took their 
meals at more rational hours than they do now, she still keeps 
up the traditions of other days. I had hitherto had no diffi- 
culty in stealing out for an hour without my aunt knowing any- 
thing about it, but to leave home at half-past five and not get 
back till ten or eleven, without saying where I was going, or or- 
dering the brougham to take me, was a matter that required a 
little diplomacy. I hit on a plan at last which I need not detail 
here, and that without having to tell my aunt any absolute fib 
about it. It is sufficient to say that I met Clement at the ap- 
pointed time and place, and that three minutes later I found 
myself with him in a hansom cab and being whirled along 
Piccadilly at a tremendous pace. It was not nearly dark yet, 
and we passed several people whom I had seen only an hour 
previously in the Row. What their thoughts would have been 
had they seen Miss Collumpton flashing past them in a hansom, 
I leave you to imagine. 

“Iam quite aware, Mora, that in confessing to all this I am 
shocking some of your most cherished prejudices. But where 
is the use of having prejudices unless you can have them pleas- 
antly shocked now and again? Does not the process put you 
in mind of an electrical machine, and of the brass rods we used 
to touch so tremblingly when we were girls at school? 

“It is almost worth while being poor for the sake of riding 
about in a hansom. A ride in a brougham or a victoria is the 
tamest of tame affairs in comparison. I had never been in a 
hansom before that evening when I went to see Mrs. Fildew, but 
I have been in one several times since — of course, with Clement 
to keep me company. How ‘ jolly ’ it is when you happen to 
have a good horse and a skilful driver! (The adjective may 
sound objectionable, dear Mora, but I can’t hit on another just 
now that expresses my meaning half so clearly.) How quickly 
you get over the ground ! How you dash in and out among car- 
riages, carts, and busses, leaving them behind one after another! 
Everybody and everything seem to get out of your way. The 
wind blows in cheerily — perhaps a few drops of rain dash 
against your face now and then, but you don’t mind them in the 


A BARREN TITLE. 


99 


least. You experience a sense of freedom, of brisk open-air en- 
joyment, such as no other mode of conveyance that I know of 
can give you. And then how cosey inside! Just room for two, 
and none to spare. But that doesn’t matter in the least if your 
companion is some one you like to sit close to. I wonder 
whether it would be wrong, Mora, for you and me to be driven 
out in a hansom some afternoon by our two selves. But you 
are such a slave to Mrs. Grundy that I almost despair of being 
able to persuade you to join me in such an expedition. 

“Here 1 am at the end of my paper and I have not intro- 
duced you to Mrs. Fildew. I must consequently defer that 
pleasure till I write to you again, which will be not later than 
the day after to-morrow. I have much to tell you yet. Pray 
let me hear from you by return, if only a word to say how your 
mother is progressing. I cannot tell you how lonely I feel 
while you are away. 

“ Your affectionate friend, 

“ Cecilia Collumpton.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


CECILIA AND THE COUNTESS. 

\ 

Second letter from Miss Collumpton in London to Miss Browne 
in the country. 

“ My dearest Mora, — . . . The close of my last letter left 
Clement and me in a hansom cab in the act of being driven to 
the lodgings of Mrs. Fildew. Clement told me that his mother 
had lately moved into fresh apartments no great distance from 
his studio. I cannot tell you how nervous I became as the mo- 
ment of my introduction to Mrs. Fildew drew near. What if I 
should read in her eyes that she thought her son had chosen un- 
wisely? It would not have mattered so much if Clement had 
not set such store by her opinion — if his love had been of that 
lukewarm kind which many grown-up sons have for their 
mother. But in this case it was different, and unless I were 
loved and liked by Clement’s mother I should feel as if I pos- 
sessed only half of Clement’s heart. 

“At length the cab stopped and my pulses beat faster than 
ever. Three minutes later 1 found myself in Mrs. Fildew’s pres- 
ence-found myself on my knees by her side, while her hands, 
that trembled a little, rested for a few moments on my hair and 
her eyes gazed anxiously and inquiringly into mine. Then she 
bent forward a little and pressed her lips to my forehead. 

“‘My boy has told me how much he loves you,’ she said. 

‘ But I welcome you here, not for his sake only, but for your 
own also. 1 often used to wish that Heaven had given me a 
daughter. At last my prayer has been answered.’ Then she 
kissed me again, and after that I sat down close beside her, but 
she still kept possession of one of my hands and caressed it 
softly with hers. 

“ Mrs. Fildew is a pale and delicate-looking elderly lady, with 
a thin, worn face and a profusion of snow-white hair. When 


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101 


young she must have been very beautiful. I think I told you 
in my last letter that she has been a confirmed invalid for years. 
She cannot walk more than a few yards without great pain and 
difficulty. From the time she rises till the time she goes to bed 
she sits in a large easy-chair that runs on noiseless wheels, which 
Clement has had specially made for her. She can work the 
wheels with her hands, and so propel herself to any part of the 
room at will. She keeps one servant, a strong, middle-aged 
woman, who has been with her several years. Sometimes, on 
sunny afternoons, Mrs. Fildew and her chair are carried down- 
stairs, and Martha takes her mistress for an airing up and down 
some of the streets where there is not much traffic, or as far as 
a certain florist’s where they have fresh flowers in the window 
every morning. 

“ Once a week Clement comes with an open carriage and 
takes his mother for a drive into the country. The next time 
they go on one of these expeditions I am to go with them. 

“Presently Martha brought in tea, which we drank out of 
quaint old biscuit-china, the cups being without handles, and 
the saucers excessively shallow. We had thin bread-and-butter, 
watercresses, sardines, damson jam, and a cake from the con- 
fectioner’s. The tea itself was simply delicious — far superior to 
any that we ever have at home. The truth is, I suppose, that 
our servants don’t know how to make tea properly: or else, 
which is quite as likely, they keep the best of it for themselves 
and only send us up what they leave. I don’t think that I ever 
tasted watercresses before that afternoon ; you have no idea how 
nice they are. To eat them is to be put in mind of country 
streamlets and all the sights and sounds that go with them — 
of hidden waterways that betray themselves by their babbling, 
and — But I ‘ loiter round my cresses. ’ 

“This six-o’clock tea, with thin bread-and-butter and water- 
cresses, is an * institution ’ that I shall never despise again. 

“ When tea was over Clement had to go out on business, and 
Mrs. Fildew and I were left alone. Why do women seem all at 
once to become so confidential towards each other the moment 
there is no longer a man in the room? I say ‘seem,’ because 
such confidences are generally more apparent than real. Mrs. 
Fildew and I followed the universal rule. Although Clement 
was so dear to us, and although we talked of nothing in his ab- 


102 


A BARREN TITLE. 


sence that we might not have said freely before his face, yet the 
moment he had left the room a spell seemed taken off our 
tongues, and we both felt that we were going to enjoy a good 
long talk. 

“ ‘I hope your situation is a comfortable one, my dear, and 
that you like it?’ said Mrs. Fildew. 

“ I had to think for a moment, and call to mind what my sit- 
uation was supposed to be before answering her that I liked it 
exceedingly. 

“ ‘Companion to a young lady, is it not? Yes. Well, I’m 
glad to hear that you are comfortable. Of course, you have 
nothing to do with cooking or the superintendence of house- 
work?’ 

“ ‘Nothing whatever, Mrs. Fildew.’ 

“ ‘ Do you know, my dear, I think that’s rather a pity.’ 

“ ‘Why so, Mrs. Fildew?’ 

“ ‘Because Clement is far from being a rich man, although, of 
Gourse, there is no knowing what his talents may do for him in 
time to come, and it would be just as well that his wife should 
know how to manage and look after a small establishment with- 
out trusting too implicitly to her servants. But probably you 
had some training in such matters when you were a girl at 
home?’ 

“‘Very little training of that kind,’ I said rather bitterly. 
My face burned, and I felt humiliated by my ignorance. 

“ ‘ Dear, dear! all young girls ought to be taught hoW to man- 
age a house,’ continued Mrs. Fildew, in that soft, low voice of 
hers, which seems as if it could never have spoken an unkind 
word to any one. 

‘ ‘ ‘ One is never too old to learn if one has a mind to do so, 
Mrs. Fildew,’ I said 

“ ‘ Well spoken, my dear The will to learn and a little per- 
severance will work wonders. I don’t suppose that Clement 
will be able to afford more than one servant at first, and for 
twelve or fourteen pounds a year you can’t expect to get a good 
cook, especially when she has to do the rest of the housework as 
well. Therefore it is all the more necessary that her mistress 
should be able to take an active part in all home matters. But 
I am afraid that you are underrating your knowledge. A 
woman who can roast a leg of mutton or see it properly 


A BARREN TITLE. 


108 


roasted — and who is not above beating up a pudding now and 
then, or turning out a little light pastry, need never be afraid of 
getting married. ’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ But, dear Mrs. Fildew, I can’t do any of the things you 
mention,’ I cried, with consternation. ‘ I never made a pudding 
or a bit of pastry in my life; and as for cooking a joint, I am 
afraid it would not be fit to send to table by the time I had done 
with it.’ 

“The dear old lady’s busy fingers ceased their movements. 
She looked at me in silence for a moment, but I thought that 
her look seemed to say, ‘ Then, pray, young lady, what is there 
that you can do?’ 

“ ‘ People are generally what. they are taught to be,’ I said, be- 
tween laughing and crying. ‘ I cannot bake, or boil, or make 
preserves, but I know how to do one or two useless things. I 
can read Dante or Goethe in the originals. I can sketch from 
nature. I can play on the piano and the harp. People tell me 
that I can sing tolerably. I can drive, I can ride, and I can 
swim.’ 

“ ‘ Then, my dear, you are far too clever a young lady to en- 
ter a kitchen or look after the cooking of your husband’s din- 
ner. Clement ought to be, and no doubt is, very proud to think 
that he has won your heart; but you and he ought not to get 
married on less than a thousand a year. ’ 

“I looked at Mrs. Fildew, in doubt whether her last speech 
was not meant as a sarcasm. But one glance into her dear face 
was enough to satisfy my mind on that point. I don’t believe 
that she ever gave utterance to a sarcastic speech in her life. ‘ I 
am not aware, Mrs. Fildew, that I have expressed any anxiety 
to get marred for ever such a long time to come. I am quite 
willing to wait — for years.’ 

“ ‘ Perhaps so, my dear, but Clement may not be possessed of 
your patience. ’ 

‘ * ‘ But surely I shall have a voice in a matter of so much im- 
portance?’ 

“ ‘ Undoubtedly. But for all that, men generally contrive to 
get their own way in these things, as you will find.’ 

“I confess, Mora, that the thought of this early marriage 
frightens me. I ought to have bargained at the outset that it 
should not take place for a couple of years at the soonest. I 


104 


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know that you, with your strong mind, would say that it is not 
too late even now to * put my foot down ’ and vow that I won’t 
be married till I’m ready to be. But then, dear, I neither pos- 
sess your strength of mind nor have you ever been in love, so 
that, all things considered, I’m afraid my resistance would be a 
very futile one. Methinks I hear you say, ‘ How humiliating 
of Cecilia to make such a confession !’ Even so, sweet one. 
N’iinporte. I would not exchange my fetters for your freedom. 

“ ‘What a useless, good-for-nothing creature you must take 
me to be, Mrs. Fildew,’ I said, glad to get away from the mar- 
riage question. 

“ ‘ Indeed, my dear, but there is no such thought in my head. 
You have been brought up as if you were a young lady of fort- 
une — that is all. And, now I come to think of it, I doubt very 
much whether Clement would allow his wife to trouble herself 
about kitchen arrangements or the proper cooking of a dinner. 
Men nowadays seem to think their wives are only made to be 
ornamental, and I suppose my boy will be no exception to the 
rule. When I was young things were different.’ 

“ ‘I’ll buy a cookery-book to-morrow,’ I cried in desperation. 

‘ It is never too late to learn.’ 

“Mrs. Fildew smiled at me, a little compassionately, as I 
thought. 

“‘It is never too late to make a good resolution,’ she said. 

‘ But if a young woman has not been trained up to housekeep- 
ing ways at home, it is not to be expected that she can take kind- 
ly to them when she grows up. I wouldn’t bother about it if I 
were you, my dear. I dare say Clement will like you all the 
better for having been brought up as a fine lady.’ 

“ But I kept my word, and next day I made myself the happy 
possessor of a cookery-book. My aunt never suspected that it 
was anything but a novel when I brought it out after luncheon. 
I read page after page of it, dipping here and there, till I had got. 
a jumble of recipes mixed higgledy-piggledy in my brain, and 
was in a pitiable state of imbecility. 

“Next morning I sought a private interview with Hannah, 
the cook, the result of which was that, in return for a certain 
consideration, she was to give me a lesson in the art of cookery 
of one hour’s duration, each morning. I have had five lessons 
already; they are immense fun, and I can safely say that I never 


A BARREN TITLE. 


105 


enjoyed my music-lessons half so much. You shall have a prac- 
tical proof of the progress I have made as soon as you get back 
to Cadogan Place. We will have a little dinner ‘ all by our two 
selves, ’ as we used to say at school, every dish at which shall be 
cooked by your Cecilia. I have written out the menu already. 

“Of course your comment on all this will be, ‘Just like Ce- 
cilia — just like her, to waste time and money over some scheme 
that can never possibly be of any practical use either to herself 
or anybody else. ’ But don’t you know, dear, that knowledge is 
power ? Besides, one never can tell what may happen. Some 
day my husband may be a poor man, and then I shall be able to 
astonish him. By-the-bye, do you know what a roly-poly dump- 
ling is? If you don’t there is a treat in store for you. I made 
a monster one yesterday for the servants. I will make a little 
one for you and me when I get you back again. 

“I don’t think I have told you yet how Mrs. Fildew occupies 
her time. She mends old lace for a large emporium at the West 
End. The way in which she does it, so as to all but defy de- 
tection, is marvellous. It seems to me a charming occupation 
for a poor gentlewoman, combining in itself the practical and the 
aesthetical. I could sit and watch her for hours as she deftly 
takes up stitch after stitch and loop after loop till ragged leaf 
and frayed flower look as good as new. 

“ Clement had never talked to me much about his father, but 
from Mrs. Fildew I learned several particulars concerning him. 
That he was a gentleman born and a gentleman bred Mrs. Fildew 
was very particular in striving to impress on my mind. It ap- 
pears that they were married in America, and there my Clement 
was born. Mr. Fildew, senior, it would seem, was so entirely a 
gentleman that it was never expected of him that he should do 
anything for a living. ‘ You know, dear, I am not a lady by 
birth,’ said Mrs. Fildew, frankly; ‘therefore, of course, it is only 
right and proper that I should work — in fact, I could not live 
without it. And then there is Clement; so that, altogether, we 
are very comfortable in our humble way.’ 

“Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. 

“ ‘ My husband is from home just now, ’ continued Mrs. Fildew. 

‘ If you had been here three days ago you would have seen him. 
Some old friend of his has come into a large property and has 
asked John to go down to his place and put it into something 


106 


A BARREN TITLE. 


like order for him. Of course, this is not like any ordinary kind 
of work, or I should not have been willing for him to go. It is 
merely a little service rendered by one friend to another. My 
husband has been a gentleman all his life, and it would never 
do for him to lower himself to any commonplace drudgery now.’ 

“ ‘I should very much like to see Mr. Fildew,’ I said — and so 
I should. I think I can understand now why Clement hardly 
ever mentions his name. 

“ ‘I don’t expect him in town for two or three weeks, but 
when he does come Clement must bring you and introduce you 
to him. There is an aristocratic style, an air of distinction, about 
Mr. Fildew, which you will not fail to recognize at once. Clem- 
ent has the same style, only in a lesser degree; but he will never 
be as handsome a man as his father.’ 

“ Presently Clement came in, and then we had some music. 
I find that ‘my boy,’ as his mother fondly calls him, plays the 
violin. With that and the piano, and your Cecilia’s thin soprano, 
the evening was gone far too quickly. It was a happy time. 
Ten o’clock brought a cab, and half an hour later I was at home. 
Good night and God bless you. More another day. 

“Your affectionate friend, 


C. C.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


“young pillbox.” 

One day, at a dinner at Sir Harry Yoxford’s, among 
other people to whom Lord Loughton was introduced 
was a certain Mr. Wellclose, a lawyer, who had the 
charge of Sir Harry’s legal business, together with that 
of various other great people of the neighborhood. 
Mr. Wellclose, a fussy, talkative, middle-aged man, 
who dearly loved a lord, contrived to seat himself 
next the earl in the smoking-room. He seemed to 
know everything about everybody ; and before the 
evening was over Lord Loughton had contrived to 
extract from him a considerable amount of informa- 
tion which might or might not be useful to him at 
some future time, “ By-the-bye, Mr. Wellclose,” 
said the earl, “are you at all acquainted with my 
next-door neighbor at Bourbon House ?” 

“ I have had occasion to meet Mr. Orlando Lar- 
kins several times on business,” said the attorney, 
“ and a very pleasant young gentleman I have found 
him to be.” 

“ I think I have heard somewhere that he doesn’t 
get on very well with the county folk hereabouts? 
Probably his antecedents are against him.” 

“ That’s just it, my lord. His father was a cele- 


108 


A BARREN TITLE. 


brated pill-maker ; and his name being rather an un- 
common one, people can’t forget the fact.” 

“ What a pity it is that the world is not more good- 
natured ! What on earth have a man’s progenitors 
to do with the man himself?” 

“My own sentiments exactly, if I may make so 
bold as to say so,” said Mr. Wellclose, who always 
made a point of agreeing with his superiors. “ I’m 
sure I’ve not the remotest idea who or what my 
great-grandfather was, and I shouldn’t be a bit bet- 
ter man if I had. But as regards young Larkins, I 
was talking with him the other day, and he seems 
quite down-hearted. Of course, there are plenty of 
people about here — such as they are — who would 
only be too happy to visit him, or to see his feet un- 
der their mahogany, simply because he is rich ; but 
the tip-top people, among whom it is the ambition of 
his life to mix, give him the cold shoulder, and no 
mistake. His name seems to cling to him wherever 
he goes. The poor fellow was telling me about his 
tour on the Continent a little while ago. Wherever 
he went people looked at him — or he fancied they 
did — and whispered to each other; and on one or 
two occasions some low cads at the table d'hote 
ranged half a dozen pill-boxes in front of their 
plates, and made believe to swallow a bolus or two 
between every course, and so drove the poor fellow 
away.” 

“ He must be rather foolishly sensitive about such 
matters.” 

“Well, he is. I don’t think he can be said to pos- 
sess a very strong mind at the best of times ; but for 


A BARREN TITLE. 


109 


all that he is a very generous-hearted, good-natured 
fellow, and I’m sorry for him.” 

“ I’ve been told that his father left him tolerably 
well off.” 

“ So he did, ray lord — and all out of pills ; or, rath- 
er, pills laid the foundation of his fortune, and lucky 
speculations did the rest. The son’s income is as near 
twelve thousand a year as makes no matter. Then 
there are the two young ladies, his sisters, who will 
have twenty thousand apiece on their wedding-day.” 

“ Why didn’t you and I go into the pill-trade, eh, 
Wellclose?” 

“Just the question I often put to Mrs. W., my 
lord.” 

“ The only way for Larkins to get out of his diffi- 
culty is for him to marry and change his name to 
that of his wife.” 

“ A capital idea, my lord, which I won’t fail to 
suggest to him the next time I see him. Talking 
about matrimony reminds me that Mr. Larkins has 
an unmarried aunt — a younger sister of his mother 
— who also has twenty thousand pounds settled on 
her. Thirty-six years of age and twenty thousand 
pounds!” As he said these words with much unc- 
tion the keen-eyed lawyer glanced up sharply in the 
earl’s face. 

“I’m afraid the lady must be too fastidious or 
she would surely have been snapped up long ago,” 
said the earl, as he knocked the ash off his cigar. 

“Perhaps so — perhaps an early disappointment or 
something of that kind. But, by Jove ! what a prize, 
eh, my lord ? What a galleon to capture and tow 


110 


A BARREN TITLE. 


safely into the harbor of Matrimony !” Again he 
glanced up keenly into the earl’s face. 

“I tell you what, Wellclose,” said his lordship, 
presently, “ I think I must get yon to introduce me 
to young Larkins one of these days.” 

“I shall be only too happy, my lord.” 

It fell out, however, that Lord Loughton was en- 
abled to make the acquaintance of Mr. Larkins with- 
out the assistance of Mr. Wellclose. Twice a week 
the earl took a return-ticket between Brimley and 
Shallowford. The two places were thirty miles 
apart. At the latter town the earl was quite un- 
known, and it was to the post-office there that he had 
requested Clem to write to him, if necessary, under 
his old name of Mr. Fildew. Twice a week he went 
over to see if any letters were waiting for him. As 
he was coming back one day, about a week after the 
dinner at Sir Harry’s, he found a gentleman in the 
carriage into which he got at Shallowford. At the 
next station some one came up to the window and 
addressed the stranger as Mr. Larkins. 

As soon as the train was under way again the earl 
spoke. “ Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. 
Larkins of Bourbon House?” he said. 

Mr. Larkins blushed, and stammered out a reply to 
the effect that he was the individual in question. 

“ I am the Earl of Loughton, and I am very glad 
to be able to make the acquaintance of my next-door 
neighbor. One can afford to be isolated in town, but 
that rule hardly holds good in the country.” Then 
he held out his hand and wrung the young man’s 
fingers very cordially. “ Why did you not call upon 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Ill 


me, Mr. Larkins, or at the very least send in your 
card ?” 

“ I — I was afraid of being considered an intruder. 
The difference in our social status and all that, my 
lord.” 

“ Pooh, pooh, my dear sir, I trust the age we live 
in is too enlightened to retain many antiquated preju- 
dices of that kind. A gentleman is a gentleman all 
the world over, whether he be a duke or a plough- 
man.” 

“I assure you, my lord, that I have been snubbed 
and slighted in a great many quarters, simply because 
my father was — well, simply because he made his 
money in business.” 

“Can it be possible! Thank Heaven, there is no 
nonsense of that kind about me. If I like a man, I 
like him, and I never stop to ask him who was his 
grandfather.” 

“ Ah, my lord, if all the aristocracy were only like 
you !” 

“ Oh, I don’t want to set myself up as a pattern, 
but those are my sentiments. I think that you and I, 
being such near neighbors, ought to be good friends. 
What do you say to dropping in to-morrow morning 
about eleven, and having a bit of breakfast with me ? 
I don’t give dinner-parties, because I’m too poor. But 
I like to have somebody to breakfast with me.” 

Mr. Larkins was overwhelmed by the earl’s conde- 
scension. At last the golden portals were about to 
open to his touch. Would the Viponds and the Cos- 
singtons dare to snub him in future when they found 
him hand-and-glove with an earl ? Mr. Larkins’s trap 


112 


A BARREN TITLE. 


was waiting at the station. It was one of the hap- 
piest half-hours of that young man’s life when he 
was seen by the good people of Brimley driving Lord 
Loughton home to Laurel Cottage. 

Mr. Larkins did not fail to put in an appearance 
next morning at the earl’s breakfast-table. On the 
following day his lordship dined en famille at Bour- 
bon House, on which occasion Orlando’s sisters were 
introduced to him. They were two really pretty 
and well-mannered girls of seventeen and nineteen. 
There was a vein of simplicity and effusive good- 
nature running through the young man’s character 
that the earl was not slow to note, and appraise at its 
proper value. From that time forward the pill- 
maker’s son and Lord Loughton were very frequent- 
ly to be seen in each other’s company. They drove 
out together, they rode together (in Orlando’s car- 
riages and on Orlando’s horses), they played billiards 
together, they dined together, and they smoked to- 
gether. Hardly a week passed without a hamper of 
wine or a box of cigars finding its way to Laurel 
Cottage. Fruit was sent nearly every day. A sad- 
dle-horse and a brougham were specially retained for 
the earl’s own use. The quidnuncs of Brimley found 
much food for gossip anent these proceedings; but as 
the earl was notoriously poor and Mr. Larkins as 
notoriously rich, they rather admired the arrange- 
ment than otherwise. It was, of course, patent to 
everybody why the earl so persistently patronized 
the pill-maker’s son, but none the less on that ac- 
count were several doors now thrown open to Or- 
lando which had heretofore been inexorably shut in 


A BARREN TITLE. 


113 


his face. People began to discover virtues and good 
qualities in the young man the existence of which 
they had never suspected before. The Honorable 
Mrs. Templemore and Lady Wildman, neither of 
whom were rich and both of whom had several un- 
married daughters, began to angle for him openly. 
When, a little later on, and at the earl’s suggestion, 
he ventured to send out invitations for a garden- 
party, to be followed by a carpet-dance, nearly every- 
body who was asked came, and it was universally ad- 
mitted to have been one of the most successful things 
of the season. From that time forward Mr. Larkins 
was accepted without question as “ one of us.” 

All this suited well with the earl’s grim and mor- 
dant humor. He laughed at Larkins and he laughed 
at those who, having at first tabooed him, were now 
willing to welcome him with open arms. He gen- 
erally spent a solitary hour in his little smoking-room 
before going to bed, musing over the events of the 
day, and planning the morrow’s campaign. At such 
times — his servants being all in bed, he indulged 
himself in a long clay pipe and a couple of glasses 
of hot brandy-and-water. The brandy and the pipe, 
together with a supply of the strong tobacco which 
he used to smoke during his evenings at the Brown 
Bear, were all kept under lock and key, in company 
with the worn and shabby pouch which had done him 
such good service in days gone by. It amused him 
at such times to think how people must talk about 
him, and he acknowledged to himself that he liked 
being talked about. His coming had caused quite a 
commotion among the stagnant circles of Brimley 
8 


114 


A BARREN TITLE. 


and its neighborhood. His sayings and doings, his 
habits and mode of life, supplied an unfailing topic 
of conversation at a hundred dinner-tables and twice 
as many tea-tables. He was already acquiring a rep- 
utation for eccentricity. It was a reputation that 
suited him, and he determined to cultivate it. 

It was not till the lapse of two months after his 
arrival at Brimley that he went up to London to see 
his wife and son. He dressed himself for the occa- 
sion in a suit of sober tweed, and left behind him 
the gold watch and chain which a Brimley trades- 
man had only been too happy to press upon him, 
and the diamond ring that Larkins had made him a 
present of. From the moment he got out of the 
train at KingVCross till the moment he got into it 
on his return he was to be plain John Fildew again. 
He quite enjoyed the masquerade, and chuckled to 
himself several times in the cab before he was set 
down at the corner of Oxford Street. Clem had ap- 
prised him of the change in Mrs. Fildew’s lodgings. 
When he walked into his wife’s sitting-room without 
knocking, that lady stared at him for a moment in 
utter surprise, and then said, “ Have you not mis- 
taken the room, sir?” 

“ Why, Kitty, dear, don’t you know me ?” he asked, 
and then he crossed the room and kissed his aston- 
ished wife. 

“How was it likely I should know you, John? 
You are not a bit like your dear old self,” and with 
that she began to cry. 

Clement, when he came in, was almost as much 
surprised, but he showed it in a different way. The 


A BARREN TITLE. 


115 


change in his father was so thorough and so striking 
that lie could hardly believe him to be the same man 
who had left them only a few weeks previously ; and 
that evening he felt a degree of respect for him such 
as he had never experienced before. He had heard 
his mother insist a thousand times on the fact of his 
father being a gentleman bred and born, but for the 
first time in Clem’s experience he looked the charac- 
ter. The earl dilated in a hazy but grandiloquent 
sort of way about his new prospects and his new 
mode of life. It was not to be expected that he 
should condescend to particulars; and as both his wife 
and son knew that he had a horror of being ques- 
tioned, they listened to all he had to say, and troubled 
him with no inconvenient queries. Clement was well 
content that matters should remain as they were, but 
Mrs. Fildew, in addition to the grief she felt at her 
husband’s absence, was somewhat fearful in her mind 
lest her “ dear John ” should have compromised his 
dignity by engaging in work that was derogatory to 
his status as a gentleman. 

Mr. Fildew’s stay in London was only from the 
dusk of one afternoon till the evening of the next. 
His avocations were of such a pressing and important 
nature, he said, that it was impossible for him to 
make a longer stay just then. In the state of his 
wife’s health — a subject respecting which he was 
anxious for more reasons than one — there was little 
apparent change since he left London. She was cer- 
tainly no better, but neither did there seem any per- 
ceptible alteration for the worse. He longed to go 
and spend an evening with his old cronies at the 


116 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Brown Bear, but after mature consideration he 
deemed it better not to do so. He looked and felt 
so changed that his old friends would hardly wel- 
come him as being any longer one of themselves. 
Besides, for anything he knew to the contrary, some 
of them might some day find themselves at Brimley 
and encounter him there ; but if they were not made 
acquainted with the alteration in his appearance, he 
flattered himself that, even so, they would hardly 
recognize him. It was decidedly to his interest to 
give the Brown Bear as wide a berth as possible. 

Great, therefore, was the earl’s surprise and chagrin 
when, as he was walking down the platform in search 
of a smoking-carriage on his return journey, he near- 
ly stumbled over Mr. Cutts, the landlord of the 
Brown Bear. “ I really beg your pardon,” exclaimed 
the earl, before he had time to recognize the man. 
At the sound of the familiar voice Cutts stared, and 
then the earl saw that it was too late to retreat. 
Grasping the landlord by the hand, and making be- 
lieve that he was delighted to see him, he hurried 
him off to the refreshment bar. In order to keep 
Cutts from questioning him, which might have been 
inconvenient, he kept on questioning Cutts. Every- 
body, it appeared, with one exception, was quite well, 
and going on much as usual. “ Of course you re- 
member Pilcher?” said Cutts. “Ah, well, he’s come 
to grief, poor devil, and quite suddenly too. It seems 
that a scamp of a brother persuaded him to accept a 
bill for a big amount. The brother bolted, Pilcher 
couldn’t meet the bill, some other creditors came 
down on him, and his stock was seized. Meanwhile 


A BARREN TITLE. 


117 


his wife died, and the result of the blooming business 
was that poor Pilcher was turned adrift on the world 
without a penny to bless himself with, and with three 
young ’u ns, all under eight, to call him father.” 

“ Poor Pilcher, indeed ! But, of course, you did 
something for him at the Brown Bear?” 

“Yes — what we could. Couldn’t do much, you 
know. Sent the hat round and got about six pounds 
— enough to bury his wife, I dare say. He shouldn’t 
have been such a fool. I’d sooner trust a stranger 
than a relation any day.” 

“And where’s Pilcher now?” 

“ Can’t say. Somewhere about the old quarter, no 
doubt.” 

“ Ah, well, I am sorry for him, poor devil. Good- 
night. Shall see you again before long.” And with 
that the earl made a rush for his carriage. 

Hext day he wrote to Clement, asking him to hunt 
up Pilcher’s address. A week later “poor Pilcher” 
received by post a twenty-pound note simply en- 
dorsed, “From a friend.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“twelve it is.” 

We must now go back a little space in our history. 

When Lord Loughton, on the occasion of his first 
dinner at Bourbon House, was introduced to Miss 
Tebbuts, the aunt of Mr. Larkins, he did not forget 
what he had been told respecting that lady. “Well- 
close said she was thirty-six, but she looks at least 
half a dozen years older than that,” muttered the earl 
to himself. “ But twenty thousand pounds can gild 
with youth and beauty a demoiselle of even that 
mature age.” And his lordship became at once very 
attentive to Miss Tebbuts. 

Hannah Tebbuts was sister to Orlando’s mother. 
In conjunction with another sister, also unmarried, 
she had for several years kept a select seminary for 
young ladies in a little town in one of the midland 
counties. When her sister married Mr. Larkins that 
gentleman had not risen to fame and fortune. He 
was still brooding over the Pill that was ultimately 
to make his name known to the ends of the earth. 
Even then Hannah Tebbuts saw but little of her 
married sister, and she saw still less of her when 
Mrs. Larkins went to live in a big mansion in the 
outskirts of London. 

By and by Mrs. Larkins died, and after that a dozen 


A BARREN TITLE. 


119 


years passed away without Miss Hannah catching 
even a passing glimpse of her rich relations in Lon- 
don. But at the end of that time there came a mes- 
sage for her to go up to town with the least possible 
delay. Her famous brother-in-law was dangerously 
ill, and he had asked that she might be sent for to go 
and nurse him. Miss Hannah was less loath to go 
because she had lately lost the sister with whom she 
had lived for so many years, and had, in consequence, 
given up her school. Once in London, there she re- 
mained till Mr. Larkins died. His illness was a long 
and tedious one, but through it all Miss Hannah 
nursed her brother-in-law with the most devoted care 
and attention. As a reward for her services, and a 
token of the high esteem in which he held her, the 
sick man, by a codicil added to his will only a few 
days before his death, bequeathed to her the very 
handsome legacy of twenty thousand pounds. 

Never was a simple-minded woman more puzzled 
what to do with a legacy. Her tastes were so inex- 
pensive, and her mode of life so quiet and sedate, 
that she could find no use for the money. All she 
could do was to place the amount in the hands of 
her nephew, begging him to allow her a hundred a 
year out of it, and invest the remainder for her in 
any way he might think best. 

Miss Tebbuts had never been handsome, but no 
one who studied her face could doubt her amiability 
and good-temper. There was nothing fashionable, 
nothing modish, about her. Her gown was after a 
style that had been in vogue some dozen years pre- 
viously. She wore elaborate caps, and little sausage- 


120 


A BARREN TITLE. 


like curls, now beginning to turn gray. She was of 
a retiring disposition, and her greatest trouble was 
having to fill the position of hostess at Bourbon 
House to the numerous strangers her nephew took 
there. Mr. Wellclose was wrong when he surmised 
that she might possibly be the victim of some early 
disappointment. Miss Tebbuts had never had an of- 
fer in her life, and if she had ever entertained any 
hopes in that direction she had trampled them under 
foot long ago, so that nothing was now left of them 
save a faint, sweet memory, like the sweetness of 
crushed flowers exhaled from a pot pourri. And 
this was the lady to whom John Marmaduke Lorri- 
more began to pay very marked attention. 

He sat next her at the dinner-table, he made his 
way to her side in the drawing-room, and he favored 
her with more of his conversation than any one else. 
After a little while he began to call two or three 
times a week and take her for drives in the basket- 
carriage, with little Mabel Larkins to play propriety. 
He was seen with her at the Brimley spring flower- 
show, and at the garden-party, of which mention has 
already been made, his attentions to her were the 
theme of public comment. In short, people began 
to talk in all directions, and before long everybody 
knew for a fact, or thought they did, that the earl 
and Miss Tebbuts were going to make a match of it. 
This notoriety was just what the earl wanted. On 
one point he was particularly careful : he never spoke 
a word of love to Miss Tebbuts, nor gave utterance 
to any sentiments that could possibly be construed 
into the faintest shadow of a declaration. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


121 


One day Orlando said, smilingly, “If you play 
your cards properly, aunt, you may yet be Countess 
of Loughton.” 

Miss Tebbuts colored up. “But I don’t want to 
be Countess of Loughton,” she said, “and you don’t 
know what you are talking about. Make your mind 
easy on one point: Lord Loughton and I will never 
be more than friends.” 

“ Such attentions as his can have but one mean- 
ing.” 

“You talk like a very young man, Orlando. Ac- 
cording to your theory, no gentleman can pay a lady 
a few simple attentions without having certain de- 
signs imputed to him.” 

“A few simple attentions, aunt ! Pardon me, but 
they seem to me most marked attentions.” 

“Well, whatever they may seem, they won’t end 
in matrimony ; on that point you may make your- 
self quite sure.” 

Orlando was terribly disappointed, but did not dare 
to show it. What a splendid thing it would have 
been to have an aunt who was a countess and an 
uncle who was an earl ! Such a dream was almost 
too blissful to contemplate. And yet he firmly be- 
lieved it might become a glorious reality if only his 
aunt were not so foolishly weak-minded. If she did 
not care greatly for such a marriage on her own ac- 
count, she ought to remember what was due to her 
nephew and nieces. Never could they hope that 
such an opportunity would offer itself again. 

One day the earl was surprised by a visit from the 
dowager countess, or, rather, he was not surprised. 


122 


A BARREN TITLE. 


He had quite expected to see her before long. Cer- 
tain rumors had reached her ears, and she had driven 
over from Ringwood to satisfy herself as to their 
truth or falsity. Mr. Flicker was with her, as monu- 
mentally severe as ever. 

The countess had not seen Lord Loughton since 
his transformation. She remembered him as a shab- 
by, buttoned-up individual, with long straggling hair, 
and patched boots, and a generally mouldy and de- 
cayed appearance, who was known to the world as 
“ Mr. Fildew.” She saw before her a good-looking, 
well-preserved, elderly gentleman, clean shaved and 
carefully dressed, and of a spruce and military aspect. 
This personage called himself Lord Loughton, and 
the countess recognized at once his likeness to cer- 
tain traditional types of the Lorrimore family. So 
far she was gratified. It was evident that the new 
earl was not likely to prove such a discredit to his 
connections as had at one time seemed but too prob- 
able. 

“ Welcome to Laurel Cottage, aunt,” said the earl, 
as he assisted her ladyship to alight. “ I thought I 
should have had the pleasure of seeing you here long 
ago.” 

The countess vouchsafed no word in reply, but 
glanced round at the house and the grounds, and 
then, turning to Flicker, she said, “Quite a little 
paradise.” 

“But without a peri to do the honors of it,” re- 
marked the earl, with a chuckle and a tug at his 
mustache. 

“Ah, I 7 m coming to that part of the business 


A BARREN TITLE. 


123 


presently,” said the dowager, in her most acidulated 
tones. u And now, have you a place, where I can sit 
down ?” 

The earl led the way into his little sitting-room. 
The countess followed him, and Mr. Flicker brought 
up the rear. The countess seated herself on an ot- 
toman, and, putting up her glasses, took a quiet sur- 
vey of the room. “Rather different from the sort 
of home you have been used to of late years —eh ?” 
she said, sharply. 

“ Yes, for an earl I can’t say that I’m badly lodged,” 
sneered her nephew. 

“ You are lodged far beyond your deserts, sir, I do 
not doubt.” 

“ The Lorrimore family have generally been fort- 
unate in that respect.” 

“I did not come here to bandy personalities with 
you.” The earl bowed. “ I came in consequence of 
a certain rumor that has reached my ears.” The dow- 
ager paused, but apparently the earl had nothing to 
say. He was stroking his chin, and gazing through his 
glass at a Parian Venus bracketed on the opposite wall. 

“A most absurd rumor,” continued the countess, 
with added asperity, “ but one, nevertheless, that I 
feel called upon to investigate. May I ask you, sir, 
whether it is true that you are going to be married 
to a creature of the name of — of — what is the creat- 
ure’s name, Mr. Flicker?” 

“ Tebbuts, my lady. Hannah Tebbuts.” 

“Just so. Tebbuts. I knew it was some horrid 
word. Pray, sir, is there any foundation for the ru- 
mor in question ?” 


124 


A BARREN TITLE. 


The earl withdrew his gaze from the Venus, and, 
producing his handkerchief, he began to polish his 
eye-glass with slow elaboration. “ May I ask, mad- 
am, by whose authority I, a man fifty -three years 
old, am catechised as though I were a schoolboy 
caught in delicto ?” 

The countess fairly gasped for breath. Mr. Flicker 
raised his hands and turned up his eyes till nothing 
but the dingy whites of them were visible. “ Cate- 
chise you, indeed ! I am here, sir, because I want to 
know the truth, and the truth I must have,” said the 
ruffled countess. “ If this rumor be correct, you have 
been obtaining money under false pretences, and 
acting as no honorable man would act.” 

The earl had actually the audacity to lean back in 
his chair and laugh. “ Really, aunt,” he said, “you 
amuse me. A little more, and your language would 
be actionable. Nobody could tell you better than 
Mr. Flicker here that, even if I were to marry to- 
morrow, I should not be doing that which you assert 
I should be. The agreement between us was that I 
was to be paid a certain quarterly stipend as long as 
I remained unmarried. There was no absolute prom- 
ise on my part that I would never marry. But the 
moment I do marry, if I ever do, the stipend will 
cease. Where are the false pretences that your lady- 
ship accuses me of?” 

For a few moments the dowager could not speak. 
Then she said — and her head by this time was nod- 
ding portentously — “I always asserted from the first 
that you were nothing better than a — a — ” 

“ Common swindler, madam,” remarked the earl, 


A BARREN TITLE. 


125 


pleasantly. “You always did say so. I give you 
credit for that much. But I remember also that long 
ago your epithets were more remarkable for their 
vigor than for their accuracy. Consequently, I have 
learned to appraise them at their proper value.” 

“ This man is insufferable,” exclaimed the countess. 
Mr. Flicker tried to look sympathetic, but only suc- 
ceeded in looking a little more miserable than be- 
fore. “ May I ask you, sir, to give me a plain an- 
swer to a plain question ? Is it, or is it not, your in- 
tention to marry ?” 

“Now we are becoming business-like, which is 
much better than being personal,” said the earl, 
placably. “ A straightforward question deserves a 
straightforward answer. I have no present inten- 
tion of getting married ; but still, more remote con- 
tingencies than that have come to pass in the history 
of the world.” 

“ A — h ! then it is true that this creature has de- 
signs on you.” 

“If by 4 this creature’ your ladyship means Miss 
Tebbuts, I say emphatically no. Allow me to add 
that Miss Tebbuts is a lady, and incapable of form- 
ing designs against any man.” 

“ A lady, forsooth ! Her father, or her brother, or 
, somebody connected with her, was a common quack.” 

“Her brother-in-law created a pill and made a 
fortune. Had he been a great captain, and killed 
ten thousand men, a grateful nation would have 
erected a statue to him ; but seeing that he only in- 
vented a pill, and probably saved ten thousand lives, 
society votes him vulgar, and passes him by on the 


126 


A BARREN TITLE. 


other side. What a strange, topsy-turvy state of 
things we have got to at the end of our nineteen 
centuries of practical religion !” 

The countess looked mutely at Flicker, but her 
look plainly said, “ Surely this fellow must be crazy.” 
Mr. Flicker responded by a melancholy shake of the 
head. “ Are we to infer from this rigmarole, sir, that 
the report is nothing more than a foolish canard , and 
that you have no more intention of getting married 
than I have ?” 

“ Well, I will hardly venture to go as far as that. 
You see, aunt, Miss Tebbuts is a very charming lady, 
and her charms are enhanced by a fortune of twenty 
thousand pounds. At five per cent, that fortune 
would yield an annual income of one thousand 
pounds.” 

“ Yes, but there would be two of you to keep out 
of it. As the case stands now, you have six hundred 
a year, and only yourself to keep.” 

“ I assure your ladyship that Miss Tebbuts’s tastes 
are of the most simple and inexpensive kind. She 
is one of those admirable women who would live on 
a hundred a year and save fifty of it.” 

“ Have you no more respect for your family, sir, 
than to marry a quack doctor’s sister?” 

“ Have my family no more respect for me than, 
out of an aggregate income of twenty thousand a 
year, to expect me to live on, and be satisfied with, a 
paltry six hundred? Are you aware, madam, that 
the Earl of Loughton’s boots let water in, and that 
he hasn’t enough money in his purse to pay for a 
pair of new ones ?” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


127 


“ So, sir, we are getting at your motives by de- 
grees. You threaten us with this marriage unless 
we agree to buy you off.” 

The earl laughed silently. u I threaten you with 
nothing; I merely put before you a plain statement 
of facts, and leave you to draw what inference you 
please. Remember, pray, that it is you who have 
come to me and not I who have appealed to you. 
Take back your six hundred a year, madam, if it so 
please you ; I shall not want for bread and cheese, I 
dare say.” 

For the first time since the discussion began, Mr. 
Flicker now spoke. “ If I remember rightly, my 
lord, the amount of income suggested by yon at our 
first meeting was twelve hundred a year — just double 
the sum you are now in receipt of ? If the family, 
taking into consideration all the circumstances of 
the case, could see their way to fall in with your first 
suggestion, is there not a possibility that these dis- 
quieting rumors respecting a presumptive matrimo- 
nial alliance might prove to be without the slightest 
foundation in fact?” 

“ In other words, Flicker, would not a golden bul- 
let bring down this canard at once and forever?” 

The ghost of a smile flitted across the lawyer’s 
hard-set face. “ My meaning precisely, my lord.” 

“ Well, golden bullets are wonderful things, and 
really, now I come to think of it, I shouldn’t be sur- 
prised if, in the present case, one of them, properly 
aimed, were to have the effect hinted at by you.” 

The countess glowered at the lawyer as though 
she could scarcely believe the evidence of her ears- 


128 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ Mr. Flicker,” she said, in her most imperious way, 
“ may I ask by whose authority you have, dared even 
to hint at a course which, if carried out, would be a 
disgrace to everybody concerned ?” 

“ My lord,” said Mr. Flicker, turning to the earl, 
“may I take the liberty of asking to be permitted to 
have five minutes’ private conversation with her lady- 
ship?” 

“ Certainly, Flicker, certainly. I’ll go and have a 
cigarette in the garden. Touch the bell and send 
the servant for me when you are ready.” And with 
that the earl strolled leisurely out. As he was shut- 
ting the door he heard the countess say with much 
emphasis, “ That man will be the death of me.” 

At the end of ten minutes a servant came in search 
of him. He found the lawyer alone. “ What has 
become of her ladyship?” he- asked. 

“ She has gone to her carriage. She is a great age, 
and the interview has somewhat tried her strength. 
I have, however, much pleasure in informing your 
lordship that — that, in fact — ” 

“ That our wild duck is to be shot with a golden 
bullet after all. Is not that so?” 

“ It is so, my lord.” 

“ Twelve?” 

“ Twelve it is, my lord. After this, I presume we 
need not disquiet ourselves in the least as to any 
matrimonial intentions on the part of your lord- 
ship?” 

“ Not in the least, Flicker. I give you my word 
of honor on that score. As I said once before, I am 
not a marrying man, and am in no want of a wife.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


m 


Mr. Flicker rose and pushed back his chair. u Wq 
are quite prepared to take jour lordship’s word in 
the matter. I shall have the honor of forwarding 
you a check as soon as I get back to town.” 

The earl expressed his thanks, and was going with 
Flicker to the door when the latter said, “ Pardon 
me, my lord, but I think it would be as well not to 
let the countess see you again to-day. There is a 
tendency to irritation of the nervous system, and I 
am afraid that your presence would hardly act as a 
sedative.” 

The earl laughed. “Perhaps you are right,” he 
said. “ Anyhow, give my love to her, and tell her 
that I hope to visit her before long at Ringwood.” 

Mr. Flicker shook his head, as implying that he 
knew better than to deliver any such message. Then 
the earl shook hands with him, and they parted. 

9 


CHAPTER XV. 

CECILIA PHILOSOPHIZES. 


The courtship of Cecilia Collumpton and Clement 
Fildew progressed as such affairs generally do pro- 
gress. Each of their meetings was looked forward 
to as an event of immense importance, for the time 
being quite dwarfing into insignificance all other oc- 
cupations and engagements. Between times they 
seemed to think of little or nothing but what they 
had said to each other at their last meeting, and 
what might possibly be said at their next. They 
met twice a week, sometimes for an hour only, some- 
times for a whole delicious evening. Oftener than 
that Cecilia could not have got away from, home 
without exciting her aunt’s suspicions. Miss Browne 
was now back at Cadogan Place. She usually ac- 
companied her friend to the trysting-place, wdiich 
was the corner of a quiet street leading out of a cer- 
tain crescent, and then, after walking with the pair 
of lovers for a short distance, she would leave them 
and go back home. Clement, of course, still be- 
lieved that Cecilia was Mora and Mora Cecilia. Miss 
Browne often implored her friend to undeceive Mr. 
Fildew, but Cecilia had gone too far to retreat. u Not 
till the very day he goes to Doctors’ Commons will 
T tell him,” she said ; “it is too sweet to me to feel 


A BARREN TITLE. 


131 


that I am loved for myself and not for my money to 
allow of my undeceiving him till the last moment. 
' He believes that I have not twenty sovereigns in the 
world, and when I’m with him I try to fancy that I 
haven’t. I make believe to myself that I am as poor 
as a church mouse.” 

“ Ah, it may be pleasant to play at being poor, 
just as children play at being soldiers,” said Mora, 
a but there’s nothing pleasant about the reality.” 

The two portraits were finished by this time, as 
were also the two Academy pictures — Clem’s and 
Tony Macer’s — and the pair of them sent in. Then 
ensued a period of suspense before it was known 
what their fate would be. 

It was about this time that Lord Loughton’s first 
visit to his wife took place. Clem forbore to say 
anything to his father about his love-affairs, and also 
begged his mother to keep her own counsel in the 
matter. He did not want to provoke any opposition 
from his father, which a knowledge of his engage- 
ment probably would have done. Silence was best 
till the wedding should be close at hand. Mean- 
while Cecilia took tea with Mrs. Fildew once a week. 

Clem knew nothing about the long talks and dis- 
cussions that took place in his absence, chiefly con- 
cerning housewifery and the best mode of making 
a small income go as far as possible. He did not 
know, and he would have blushed if he had known, 
how often he himself formed the topic of conversa- 
tion on such occasions. To both these loving hearts, 
one young and one old, he was the dearest object on 
earth; why, then, should they not talk about him? 


132 


A BARREN TITLE. 


All Clem knew was that they seemed to agree to- 
gether remarkably well. His mother sometimes told 
him jokingly that Cecilia was far too good for him, 
far beyond his deserts ; and Cecilia often asseverated 
that she only tolerated him for the sake of darling 
Mrs. Fildew. 

By and by came pleasant news. Both Mr. Macer’s 
picture and Clem’s were accepted at the Academy. 
As soon as Cecilia heard this she went to a dealer 
with whom she had had some previous transactions, 
and instructed him to go on the private-view day and 
buy the two pictures for her in his own name. Clem 
pressed her to go with him on the opening-day, but, 
knowing that her aunt would almost certainly be 
there, as well as a number of her acquaintances, she 
put her lover off till later in the week. Clem reso- 
lutely refused to go without her. He heard that his 
picture was sold, for news of that kind soon finds its 
way to the studios ; but thinking to afford Cecilia a 
pleasant surprise, he said nothing to her about it. 
On the fourth day they went together. Cecilia, feel- 
ing sure there would be several people there whom 
she knew, was very plainly dressed and wore a veil. 
She would fain have hurried off to the picture the 
moment she entered the building, but Clem, cata- 
logue in hand, persisted in going to work in the or- 
thodox way. 

When, at length, they did reach it, they found 
quite a little crowd of people in front of it. Cecilia 
pressed her lover’s arm. “Whether the critics ap- 
preciate your picture or not, it is quite evident that 
the general public do,” she whispered. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


138 


“ It would be the general public who would appre- 
ciate me if I were to grin 'through a horse-collar at a 
fair,” whispered Clem in return. 

“ Is not that the truest test of appreciation ?” asked 
Cecilia, pointing with brightened eyes and glowing 
cheeks to the tiny ticket stuck in the frame. For 
the first time since entering the building she had now 
thrown back her veil. Clem thought he had never 
seen her look so lovely as at that moment. 

“ You see, dear, there are still a few people in the 
world with more money than brains,” he said, quiet- 
ly. “ What would become of us poor painters if 
Providence had not kindly arranged matters so ?” 

“ I wonder what your secret admirer would say if 
he could hear you giving utterance to such here- 
sies.” 

“ Were my secret admirer here I would thank him 
for one thing, if for no other.” 

“ May I ask what the one thing is that you would 
thank him for?” 

“ For enabling me, by the purchase of my picture, 
to get married at midsummer. Bless him for a good 
man !” 

As Cecilia said afterwards to Mora, “ I was struck 
dumb. All that I could do was to let my veil drop 
and move on. When I instructed Checkly to buy 
the pictures for me, I never dreamed that from a 
cause so simple an event so dire would spring. Per- 
haps it is fortunate for us that we can so rarely fore- 
see all the consequences of our actions.” 

“ Supposing for a moment,” said Mora, slyly, 
“ that the gift of foreknowledge had been yours in 


134 


A BARREN TITLE. 


this case, would you or would you not have bought 
the picture 

Cecilia gazed silently out of the window for a few 
moments. “ I don’t know what I should have done,” 
she said at last. “ I certainly object to being mar- 
ried at midsummer, but, on the other hand, if Clem’s 
picture had not been sold, what a disappointment it 
would have been to him.” 

“ But what a surprise when he finds out who the 
purchaser is !” 

“ That he shall never find out till we are married, 
not if it’s a dozen years first. Well, we went next 
and looked at Mr. Macer’s picture. I verily believe 
that Clement was far better pleased that his friend’s 
work should have found a purchaser than that his 
own had. Anyhow, he was in such high spirits that 
when we left the Academy he insisted on our having 
a hansom and going to look at two empty houses 
that he had seen advertised in one of the newspa- 
pers. One of the houses was at Haverstock Ilill, 
the other at Camden Town ; suburbs of London, 
both of them, hitherto known to me only by name. 
The rent of both houses was the same — sixty pounds 
a year. I told Clement that I thought we could do 
with a house at a much less rent than that, and 
begged of him not to go beyond his means.” 

“ Gracious me, Cecilia, how could you ?” 

“Oh, it was great fun. After seeing the houses 
we drove to a furniture emporium, and there, after 
due deliberation, I chose a pattern for our drawing- 
room suite : a pale-blue figured silk, with a narrow 
black stripe running through it, my dear Mora, and 
the price twenty-five guineas.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


135 


“ How could you let Mr. Fildew go to such an ex* 
pense?” 

“Shall I not make it up to him a thousandfold 
one of these days ? T,he day before yesterday we 
bought a lot more things — carpets, china, what not. 
I can’t tell you how delightful it is to go about in 
this way, and not finally fix on anything till you feel 
sure that you can really afford it. Poor people must 
value their homes far more than rich people can. 
They have had to work and think and contrive, 
and get their things together an article or two at a 
time, as they could spare the money. We well-to- 
do people give carte blanche to a firm, and our man- 
sion is fitted up from garret to basement almost with- 
out our having a voice in the matter. In many ways 
it is better to be poor than rich, and this is one of 
them.” 

“ What a pity it is, my dear Cis, that Providence 
did not make you a governess at sixty guineas a year, 
or a curate’s wife at a hundred and fifty.” 

“In either case I should have led a much more 
useful existence than I do now. Which reminds me 
that as I was parting from Clement last evening he 
put a sealed envelope into my hands, with a request 
that I would not open it till I was alone. You would 
never guess what was inside : a twenty-pound note 
towards my wedding outfit.” 

“ Oh, Cecilia !” 

“ Of course there were a few words with it. He 
said he felt sure that out of my small income it was 
impossible for me to have saved more than a trifle, 
and, as I had no parents to fall back upon, would I 


136 


A BARREN TITLE. 


make him happy by accepting the enclosure to buy 
my wedding dress with. What a dear fellow he is! 
I hope to be able to keep that note unchanged as 
long as I live. Perhaps you think I ought not to 
have accepted it ?” 

“I hardly know what to think,” answered Miss 
Browne. “ Certainly, to accept money, even from 
the gentleman to whom one is engaged, seems — ” 

“ Yery shocking, does it not, to us, with our petty 
conventional notions? If the money were offered 
in the shape of a bracelet, that would make all the 
difference. But here am I, a poor girl about to be 
married, who cannot afford to buy her wedding- 
gown. My sweetheart offers me money to buy it 
with. Am I to be so nonsensical, so stuffed up with 
silly pride, as to refuse his offer, and say, 6 If you 
can’t marry me in my old dress, you sha’n’t marry 
me at all ’ ? I think I have acted as a sensible girl 
would act under such circumstances. Anyhow, I 
mean to keep that note.” 


CHAPTER XYI. 


PALLIDA MOBS. 

As Lord Longhton became more familiarized with 
his fresh mode of life, and as the novelty which 
waits upon all things new gradually wore itself away, 
there came times and seasons when he was at a loss 
how to get through the day with that degree of satis- 
faction to himself which, as an elderly man of the 
world, he thought he had a right to expect. He 
found the morning hours — say, from ten till four — 
hang the most heavily on his hands. Some men 
would have stayed in bed till noon, have lounged 
over breakfast till two o’clock, and have made 
their cigar and newspaper last them well on into 
the afternoon. But the earl had never been used 
to lying late in bed, and he felt no inclination to 
begin the practice now. Besides which, that ever- 
increasing tendency to corpulence had to be fought 
against in various ways. His medical adviser told 
him that, in addition to the riding exercise which he 
took, he ought to take more exercise on foot. But 
the earl detested walking along the dull country 
roads. To have them, and them alone, to ride and 
drive on was bad enough, while everybody else was 
enjoying the delights of town, but to be condemned 
to trudge along them on foot, as though he were a 


138 


A BARREN TITLE. 


pedlar or a tramp, was more than he was prepared 
to endure. He would have given much to be able 
to go up to London for a few weeks during the sea- 
son, and take up that position in society to which his 
rank entitled him. But he durst not venture on a 
step so hazardous. Too many people in London 
knew him as Mr. Fildew to allow of its being safe 
for him to appear there as Lord Loughton. Perhaps 
one of the first people whom he might chance to 
meet in the Row or in Piccadilly would be his own 
son. He knew well that if the faintest suspicion of 
his having a son, or even of his being married, were 
to reach the ears of the dowager countess, he might 
say farewell forever to his twelve hundred a year. 
Evidently the game was not worth the candle. Evi- 
dently the risk he would run by such a step was far 
too great to be rashly incurred. His periodical jour- 
neys to London to see his wife were another thing. 
They could be made without much risk of discovery. 
He arrived at dusk and departed at dusk, and hardly 
stirred out of doors during his stay. 

The earl was not a reading man. Sometimes on a 
Sunday he would skim through a few pages of Black- 
wood or The Quarterly (they were good, old-fashioned 
periodicals to have lying about when anybody called), 
till drowsiness crept over him, and the thread of 
what he had been reading became entangled in the 
webs of sleep. But on weekdays he rarely read any- 
thing except the Times. Of that he was a diligent 
student, his maxim being that a man may pick 
enough out of his newspaper to enable him to hold 
his own in almost any company. Most people said, 


A BARREN TITLE. 


139 


“ What a well-informed man the Earl of Loughton 
seems to be.” It was simply that he had the knack 
of presenting other people’s ideas from his own point 
of view, and thereby giving them a gloss of original- 
ity which only one person here or there was clever 
enough to see through. But he seldom originated 
ideas of his own. 

But even when the Times had been conscientiously 
waded through, several hours were still left before 
dinner. He could not go out every day riding on 
Mr. Larkins’s hack, or driving about the country with 
Miss Tebbuts and the young ladies. The attractions 
of Brim ley were of a very limited character, and the 
nearest town of any consequence was a dozen miles 
away. Now and then there was a flower-show, or a 
picnic, or an archery meeting, to break the monotony 
of country life; but such excitements were few and 
far between. Sometimes the earl, in dressing-gown 
and smoking-cap, would potter about his garden for 
an hour or two, and simulate an interest he was far 
from feeling in the prospects of his wall-fruit or the 
progress of his marrowfats. Oh, for the glories of 
Piccadilly or Regent Street, on a warm spring after- 
noon ! The life, the brightness, the gay shops, the 
well-watered streets, the sunny pavement, the ever- 
changing panorama — with a sovereign in one’s pocket, 
and no social obligations to deter one from slaking 
one’s thirst as often as one might feel inclined to do 
so ! 

When once the time to dress for dinner was reached 
the earl was himself again. He rarely dined at home 
more than once or twice a week. When such a con- 


140 


A BARREN TITLE. 


tingency did happen, he generally walked into the 
town, and found his way in the course of the even- 
ing to the billiard-room at the George. It was a 
private subscription table, but his lordship was al- 
ways made welcome. It was not every day that the 
small gentry of Briinley had the privilege of playing 
billiards with an earl, and such opportunities were 
'made the most of. Indeed, they never thought of 
begrudging their half-crowns, of which his lordship 
generally took half a pocketful back home with him, 
for he was rather a line player when he chose to put 
forth his strength, and none of the Briinley amateurs 
were a match for him. 

Still, life at Laurel Cottage sometimes grew rather 
monotonous, as, indeed, it well might do to a man 
who had been a confirmed flaneur for years. Often 
of a night the earl longed for the jolly company of 
the Brown Bear. As a rule the Brimley magnates 
were intensely sedate and decorous, whereas the earl 
had Bohemian proclivities which not even the gray 
hairs of middle life had power to eradicate. A jorum 
of toddy and a long pipe, with a congenial companion, 
had far more attractions for him than the Clicquot 
and hot-house fruit of srnug*faced respectability. 
Alas! in all Brimley he could find no companion 
who would say Bo to his goose — no one who would 
forget that there were such people as earls, who, if 
needs were, would contradict him to his face, and to 
whom such phrases as “ Yes, my lord,” and “ No, my 
lord,” were absolutely unknown. 

One morning, while Lord Loughton was dawdling 
over his breakfast, a brougham drove up to Laurel 


A BARREN TITLE. 


141 


Cottage, from which three gentlemen alighted. Only 
one of the three proved to be known to the earl. He 
was a certain Mr. Wingfield, a retired merchant of 
ample means, whom he had met once or twice at 
dinner. Mr. Wingfield, after introducing his two 
companions, proceeded to state the object of his 
visit, which was neither more nor less than to solicit 
his lordship to become chairman of the new line of 
railway between Brimley and High cl iff e. The line 
was near completion, and the opening was to take 
place some time in July. “ Our late chairman died 
last week,” said Mr. Wingfield, “ and we want a good 
name to fill up the vacancy.” 

“ But I know nothing whatever about rail manage- 
ment,” Urged the earl. 

“ That’s of no consequence whatever,” answered 
Mr. Wingfield. “ We understand it, and I am the 
vice-chairman, so that your lordship will be well sup- 
ported. At present we meet for two hours twice a 
week. After each meeting we have luncheon. The 
chairman’s honorarium, as fixed at present, is two 
hundred guineas a year.” 

“ But before accepting such a position would it not 
be requisite that I should qualify myself by holding 
a certain number of shares in the company?” 

“ If your lordship will leave that little matter to 
me and my colleagues, we will take steps to have 
you duly qualified.” 

“ In that case you may make use of my name in 
any way you think proper.” 

The earl took to his new duties con amove. His 
two visits per week to the Brimley board-room en- 


142 


A BARREN TITLE. 


aided him to get through a couple of mornings very 
pleasantly without interfering with the after-part of 
the daj'. Then the luncheon with which each meet- 
ing broke up was by no means to be despised. More 
than all, the check for a hundred guineas, which was 
to come to him every half-year, would form a very 
welcome addition to his limited income. 

His position as chairman of the railway board 
brought Lord Loughton into contact with a number 
of well-to-do people, connected more or less with 
trade, who thought it a great thing to be hand-and- 
glove with an earl. His lordship was always affable 
to men who gave good dinners, and the consequence 
was that he w r as now less at home than ever. Mr. 
Wingfield had a brother in the City who was well 
known as a promoter and launcher of new com- 
panies. Before long an offer was made to the earl 
to become chairman to two new schemes that were 
on the eve of being floated. The duties were light — 
to meet the board twice a month for a couple of 
hours — the honorarium liberal, and the liability in 
case of disaster next to nothing. The earl closed 
with the offer at once. It is true that his visits to 
the City would involve a certain degree of risk, but 
he was quite prepared to face it. Even if some old 
acquaintances should chance to meet him as he was 
being whirled past them in a cab, it did not of neces- 
sity follow that they should know him as any other 
than Mr. Fildew. And then, as Wingfield had as- 
sured him more than once, his connection with the 
City was sure to bring under his notice some of the 
“good things” that were always going about on the 


A BARREN TITLE. 


14 * 


quiet, to participate in which the leverage of a little 
capital was all that was needed. That capital he was 
determined by hook or by crook to obtain. Old as 
he was, there was still time for him to lay the foun- 
dation of an ample fortune before he died. Clem 
should be no pauper peer, dependent on the bounty 
of relatives for his daily bread. 

These golden dreams were interrupted for a time 
by the news of his wife’s serious illness, and the 
necessity for his immediate presence in London. 
The letter conveying the news had been lying for 
three days at the Shallowford post-office when he 
called there. He hurried off at once, but when he 
reached Soho he found that had he stayed away an- 
other day he would probably have been too late. 

“Why, Kitty, my dear, what is this?” he said, as 
he stooped over the bed and kissed his wife’s white 
face. There was a tremor in his voice that sounded 
as strange to himself as it could possibly have done 
to any one else. Now that the end was so near, old 
chords, the existence of which he had forgotten, 
began to vibrate again in his heart ; countless mem- 
ories burst through the crust of years, and bloomed 
again for a little while with the fragrance of long 
ago. Now that his treasure was about to be taken 
from him he began to realize its value as he had 
never realized it before. 

“ This means, John, dear, that my summons to go 
has come at last — the summons I have waited for, 
oh ! so wearily.” She pressed his hand to her lips 
and then nestled it softly against her cheek. 

“It’s these confounded east winds,” said the earl, 


144 


A BARREN TITLE. 


huskily. “They are enough to lay anybody by the 
heels. When the warm weather sets in you’ll soon 
be all right again.” 

“Not in this world, darling. Perhaps in the next. 
I began to be afraid that you would not be here in 
time for me to see you,” she added, presently. “ It 
would have seemed very hard to die and you not by 
my side.” 

“I came as soon as the letter reached me. I — I 
had been from home, and the letter was waiting for 
me on my return.” 

“ I knew that you would come, dear, as soon as 
possible, and now that you are here I am quite happy. 
1 told Moggy to put a steak on the fire the moment 
she heard you knock. I am sure you must be hun- 
gry after your long journey.” 

Later on in the evening, when they were alone, the 
sick woman said to her husband — and by this time 
her voice was very weak and uncertain — “ I have 
been thinking a great deal about our wedding-day 
this afternoon. Why, I cannot tell. When I was 
lying half asleep just now, every little incident came 
back to me as freshly as though they only dated 
from yesterday, even to the smell of the musk-roses 
on the breakfast- table. And then I remembered 
something that I have hardly thought of for years. 
I remembered that your name is not John Fildew, 
but John Marmaduke Lorrimore. You told me 
never to mention that name to any one, and I never 
have — not even to Clement. You told me never to 
ask you any questions about it, and I never have. 
But you told me also that some day, and of your own 


A BARREN TITLE. 


145 


accord, you would reveal to me the reasons that had 
compelled you to change your name. A woman’s 
curiosity is one of the last things to leave her. It is 
not too late, dear, to tell me now.” 

The earl mused for a moment. The doctor had 
told him that it was quite impossible for his wife to 
live, consequently no valid reason existed why he 
should not tell her everything. “ I changed my 
name,” he said, “ because when I was young and 
foolish I did something that disgraced both my 
friends and myself. Not a crime, mind you ; in fact, 
nothing more heinous than incurring debfs of honor 
which I was totally unable to meet. That was bad 
enough in all conscience, but I was young and sensi- 
tive in those days, and probably felt things more 
keenly than I should now. Anyhow, I thought that 
in a new country, and under a new name, I could 
bury the past, and perhaps do wonders in the future. 
Then I met you, dear, and you know the rest. Only 
I have never done the wonders I intended to do.” 

“ You have been the best and dearest husband in 
the world.” The earl winced, and shook his head in 
mild dissent. “ But what a pity that after all these 
years you are not able to resume your own proper 
name and station in the world.” 

“ I hope to be able to do so before long. Death 
has made strange havoc among the Lorrimores of 
late years, and your husband is now the head of the 
family.” 

“ I have always said that you were a gentleman 
bred and born.” 

“ And you are a lady, Kitty — if not by birth at 

10 


146 


A BARREN TITLE. 


least by merit and by rank. If the world knew you 
by your proper title it would call you Countess of 
Lough ton.” 

The sick woman stared at her husband as though 
unable to take in the meaning of his words. “I am 
the Earl of Lougliton, Kitty, and you are my count- 
ess,” he said. “ The thing is simple enough.” 

“You tell me this and I am dying!” she said, after 
a minute’s silence. “It is of little use to tell me 
now.” 

“The time was not ripe for you to be told before. 
Nor has the time yet come to tell it to the world.” 

“And Clement?” 

“He knows nothing, and at present it would not 
be wise to tell him. It would only unsettle his mind 
and do him harm instead of good. When the proper 
time comes he will be told everything. At present 
I am working both for his interests and my own. A 
pretty thing it would be thought that Lord Shoreham, 
the son of the Earl of Lougliton, should have to paint 
pictures for his bread and cheese! He had far bet- 
ter go on painting them as ‘Clement Fildew’ till he 
can afford to give up painting altogether.” 

“ My dear boy a lord ! It seems all a strange, 
foolish dream.” 

“ It is a very simple reality. Clement is Lord 
Shoreham as surely as I am sitting by your side. 
But of this he must know nothing for some time to 
come.” 

“ And I am Countess of Loughton ! How wonder- 
ful it seems ! But I could not have loved you more 
than I have had I known this all along. Perhaps I 


A BARREN TITLE. 


147 


should not have loved you so much. God is good, 
and he orders everything for the best. I have been 
very happy, and the queen on her throne can’t be 
more than that.” 

She closed her eyes and lay silent a little while, 
thinking over what she had just heard. “John, 
dear,” she said after a time, “if you ever put a stone 
over my grave, will you say on it , 4 Here lies Catha- 
rine, Countess of Loughton,’ or will you say, ‘Here 
lies Kitty, wife of John Fildew’?” 

“Why do you talk of such things? I hope and 
trust you will be with us for many a day to come.” 

“You know better than that, dear. My time is 
very short now. But I think I should like to have 
my real name on my tombstone — if my real name is 
what you tell me.” 

“It is your real name, and everything shall be as 
yon wish.” 

A smile of satisfaction crept over the dying wom- 
an’s face. “ I think I can sleep a little now,” she 
said, “and you must be tired, sitting here so long. 
Tnere’s your Turkish pipe in the cupboard down- 
stairs, and I told Moggy to have some of your favor- 
ite mixture in readiness for you.” 

Mrs. Fildew died the following afternoon. She 
sank into a sleep as calm as that of an infant, and 
did not wake again. Her husband and son were 
with her at the last. Cecilia had seen her two days 
before the earl’s arrival. “It is not half such a 
trouble to leave my boy as I thought it would be,” 
Mrs. Fildew said to her. “ I know that you and he 
love each other, and that I leave him in the best of 


148 


A BARREN TITLE. 


hands. Don’t worry your mind about the house- 
keeping, dear — you will have servants to do all that 
for you. Clement will like to see you nicely dressed 
when he comes home. Those pretty hands were 
never made to be spoiled by pickles and preserves.” 

The earl buried his wife under the name she had 
so long been known by. To have made use of any 
other would have led to questions which as yet he 
was not prepared to meet. “ By and by, when I put 
up the tombstone, the world shall know her by her 
proper name and title, but not now — not now.” To 
his son’s surprise he bought a private lot in one of 
the cemeteries, and had an expensive bricked grave 
made. The cost seemed to be no object to him. 
Clem wondered, but said nothing. On the evening 
of the day after the funeral the earl bade farewell 
to his son for a little while, and went back to Laurel 
Cottage. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


GOLDEN DREAMS. 

It was impossible for Lord Lough ton to wear deep 
mourning for his wife without provoking sundry in- 
convenient inquiries, so he simply put a narrow band 
round his hat, and wore gloves stitched with black. 
“ I’ve lost an old and very dear friend,” he remarked, 
incidentally, here and there. “ Some one I knew 
when I was abroad many years ago. Quite cut me 
up to hear that he was gone.” 

Over the solitary pipe in which he indulged the 
last thing before going to bed he often found his 
thoughts wandering off in the direction of Miss Teb- 
buts. Here were twenty thousand pounds ready to 
drop into his hands ; for, without self-flattery, in 
which, to do him justice, he rarely indulged, he fully 
believed that if he were to ask the lady to become 
Countess of Loughton he need not fear a refusal. It 
was true, he had promised Flicker that in considera- 
tion of his augmented income all thoughts of matri- 
mony should be banished from his mind. But cir- 
cumstances when he made that promise were differ- 
ent with him from what they were now, and, in any 
case, such a promise could hardly be held to be final- 
ly binding. Should he decide to become a Benedick 
once more, he would give due notice to the countess. 


150 


A BARREN TITLE. 


Everything should be fair and above-board. He of- 
ten chuckled to himself when he tried to picture the 
dismay and rage with which the dowager would greet 
any notice of his impending marriage. And yet the 
real fun of the affair lay, not in the fact of his con- 
tracting a second marriage, but in the much more 
significant fact of his having a grown-up son and 
heir ready to his hand. What the dowager would 
say and do in case it ever came to her ears that there 
was already in existence a strapping young man of 
five feet eleven inches who was entitled to call him- 
self Lord Shoreham if he only knew it, was more 
than even the earl could imagine. The news would 
almost be enough to kill her. He would be amply 
revenged on her for all her slights and insults one of 
these daj^s. 

Then again, provided he made up his mind to go 
on with his matrimonial scheme, it would hardly do 
for either Miss Tebbuts or her friends to be made 
aware of the existence of Clement. Were that fact 
to come to their ears, the twenty thousand pounds 
might not so readily drop into his hands. After the 
marriage it would not matter how soon he introduced 
his son to them. They might then digest their dis- 
appointment as they best could. Their feelings in 
the matter would be nothing to him. 

His frequent conversations with money-making 
Mr. Wingfield tended more than anything else to 
direct his thoughts into the channel of matrimony. 
“With five thousand to start with, you ought to be 
worth fifty thousand at the end of five years,” was 
one of the several maxims with which Mr. Wiug- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


151 


field was in the habit of making our impecunious 
peer’s mouth water. As a sort of corollary to the 
doctrine he was in the habit of preaching, the mer- 
chant on one occasion lent the earl three hundred 
pounds in order that the latter might participate, to 
an iufinitesimal extent, in one of the many “good 
things ” that seemed as plentiful as blackberries in 
those halcyon days of unlimited confidence. At the 
end of two months the earl sold out, by the advice 
of his friend, realizing thereby, on his original in- 
vestment of three hundred pounds, a clear profit of 
as much more. It was no wonder that the earl be- 
gan to court his City friends more and more, and that 
he came to find his most interesting reading in the 
money articles of his favorite newspaper. 

One grain of justice we must do him. In all his 
dreams of wealth and prosperity to come he had 
Clement’s future at heart almost as much as his own. 
It should not be his fault if Clement did not come 
into fortune as well as title. In so far he was un- 
selfish, and no further. If only Crnm would sup- 
plement his father’s efforts by making a rich mar- 
riage, then w r ould all be well. The earldom of 
Loughton, in the hands of the junior branch of the 
family, might ultimately shine with a lustre equal to 
that which had emanated from it in days gone by. 

It was during the time these thoughts were fer- 
menting in his mind that the earl was surprised by a 
visit from Miss Collumpton and Mr Slingsby Bos- 
combe. They had been summoned to King wood by 
the countess, who was anxious to see for herself how 
matters were progressing with the two young peo- 


152 


A BARREN TITLE. 


pie. When the present detestable individual who 
held the title should die — and surely Providence 
would be considerate enough to remove him before 
long — then Slingsby would be Earl of Lough ton, and, 
what with his own fortune and that of Cecilia, he 
would be in a position to make a very respectable 
figure as a nobleman. The marriage of these two 
was the last pet scheme of the dowager’s life, but we 
know already what small likelihood there was of its 
fulfilment. Cecilia and Slingsby, knowing for what 
purpose they had been summoned to Ringwood, 
agreed between themselves, before their interview 
with the countess, what each of them should say. 

Keen-sighted as the old lady usually was, they con- 
trived to hoodwink her most effectually. They 
walked and talked and sat together, and seemed full 
of private confidences with each other. When the 
countess spoke about Slingsby to Cecilia, the latter 
said, with a smile, “ Yes, we are very good friends, 
are we not? I always did like Slingsby.” 

“ But it’s a question of something more than lik- 
ing. You know what I mean?” 

“ Quite well, aunt.” 

“ You know how I have set my heart on this mat- 
ter. I hope you are not going to disappoint me.” 

“ As I said before, aunt, Slingsby and I are the 
best of friends. We understand each other thorough- 
ly ; is not that enough ?” 

“ I suppose I must make it so. But young peo- 
ple nowadays do their courting so frigidly that one 
can never tell when they are in earnest and when 
they are not.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


153 


It was not without certain qualms of conscience 
that Cecilia consented to deceive her aunt thus. It 
was only at Slingsby’s earnest entreaty that she 
agreed to do so. He had committed the imprudence 
of a secret marriage, and was most anxious that his 
father should have no suspicion of the fact, otherwise 
his allowance would be stopped, and his wife and 
himself reduced for a couple of years to come to a 
condition of genteel pauperism. 

When Cecilia and Slingsby set out from Ringwood 
on the morning of their visit to Laurel Cottage they 
had no intention of adventuring so far. It was only 
when they had been riding for an hour that Slingsby 
said, “ Now that we have come so far we may as well 
go on to Brimley and hunt up his lordship. What 
say yon, Cis ?” 

“ I should like it of all things. Only, we have 
never been introduced to him.” 

“ I don’t suppose he will mind that in the least. 
We are his relations, and it’s only right that we 
should know each other.” 

“ Then let us go. But the dowager will be dread- 
fully annoyed if she hears of it.” 

“Who’s to tell her? Not you or I.” 

The earl received them with much empressement , 
and made them stay to luncheon. Slingsby was 
greatly taken with him; the earl had always had a 
happy knack of making himself agreeable to young 
men. To Cecilia he was an enigma. There was 
about him a certain indefinable something which 
seemed familiar to her. It was not his features, nor 
his voice, nor his walk, nor anything on which she 


154 


A BARREN TITLE. 


could definitely fix, that put her in mind of some 
other person whom she had at some time met. It 
seemed to her rather as if she must have known the 
earl when she was a very little girl — though that 
was an impossibility — or else that she must have met 
him in some previous state of existence, and have 
not quite forgotten him in this. 

“ Surely these young people must abound with 
generous instincts,” said the earl to himself. “ It 
would be a pity not to develop and encourage them.” 
So he showed them round the garden, which was 
really a charming little spot, and came to the stable 
and coach-house last of all. “I have no use for 
these,” said the earl, with a doleful shake of his head. 
“I am thinking of advertising them as being to 
let.” 

“ But is not your lordship fond of riding and driv- 
ing?” 

“Yes; no one more so. But then, I am a poor 
man. Even a hack for riding is a luxury beyond my 
reach.” 

A meaning look passed between Cecilia and 
Slingsby, which the earl’s quick eyes did not fail to 
note. 

About a fortnight later the railway people at Brim- 
ley advised the earl that a brougham and two horses 
had arrived at the station, and awaited his orders 
there. The next post brought a pretty little note 
from Cecilia, in which she requested, on the part of 
herself and Mr. Boscombe, the earl’s acceptance of a 
brougham and horse, together w r ith a cob for riding. 
The earl smiled grimly as he read the note. “Two 


A BARREN TITLE. 


155 


good children — very,” he muttered. “I suppose 
they intend to make a match of it. I hope they 
won’t regret their generosity when they find out 
that there is such a person in existence as Clement 
Fildew Lorrimore, otherwise Lord Shoreham.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


tJP A LADDER. 

Now that his income had been doubled, now that 
he could afford to keep his brougham, now that his 
position as chairman of the Brimley Railroad Com- 
pany, and his seats at the two other boards in Lon- 
don, enabled him to fill up his time with so much 
pleasure and profit to himself, it might reasonably 
have been expected that the Earl of Loughton would 
settle down into the comfortably padded groove in 
which he found himself, and tempt fortune no more. 
But such was not the case. There was about him a 
restlessness of disposition, an uneasy longing for some- 
thing more than the present could give him, however 
sunny that present might be. And yet, strange to 
say, this restlessness and this longing had only devel- 
oped themselves in him of late. In his old days of 
poverty all ambition had been crushed out of him 
by the hopelessness of his condition. The prospect 
of any change for the better had seemed so infin- 
itesimal that he had long ago made up his mind, 
with a sort of dogged despair, to live and die, un- 
knowing and unknown, as plain John Fildew, of 
Hayfield Street, W. C. 

But now, as if by a touch of a necromancer’s wand, 
everything had been changed, and that change had 


A BARREN TITLE. 


157 


called into existence hopes and wishes undreamed of 
before. A golden mirage glittered forever before 
his eyes. Now that he had come to mix among 
financial circles, he saw men on every side of him in 
the process of coining fortunes, and either founding 
families for themselves, or allying themselves by 
marriage — giving gold in exchange for position — to 
families already made. What was a paltry twelve 
hundred a year for a man of his rank to live on and 
keep up his station in the eyes of the world ? — and 
even that would die with him. His son would have 
a barren title, indeed, unless he should be able to 
coax some heiress into becoming his wife. Instead 
of resting satisfied with twelve hundred a year, it 
seemed to the earl that he might just as well be in 
receipt of ten thousand a year. A few lucky specu- 
lations would do that for him. But in order to avail 
himself fully of such speculative opportunities he 
must have a certain leverage of capital to work with ; 
and was there not a splendid lever ready to his hand 
in Miss Tebbuts’s twenty thousand pounds? His 
friend Wingfield would turn twenty thousand 
pounds into a hundred thousand in a very short 
space of time. Why should not he, Lord Loughton, 
do the same — with Wingfield’s help? 

Meanwhile the railway was rapidly approaching 
completion, and the opening-day was already fixed. 
Every morning brought the earl a number of appli- 
cations for appointments of various kinds. The la- 
bor of adjudicating on the merits of the different 
candidates was one that suited him exactly. The 
power of patronage is sweet to all men, and the earl 


158 


A BARREN TITLE. 


was no exception to the rule. His popularity grew 
daily. The new hotel that was being built near the 
station was to be called The Longhton Anns, and the 
new street was to be Lorrimore Road, while the joint 
names, John Marmaduke, became quite common spon- 
sorial appellations among the infantile population of 
Brimley. When his lordship rode slowly through 
the town to his office at the railway-station, bows and 
smiles greeted him on every side. Everybody knew 
him ; even the lads in the streets used to shout to 
each other, as soon as they caught sight of him, “ Here 
comes the earl.” 

At length came the day appointed for the govern- 
ment inspector to go over the line. A week later 
brought the opening-day. The ceremony differed in 
nowise from that in vogue on various occasions of 
a similar kind. The directors and their friends, the 
latter consisting of several county magnates, with 
two or three M.P.’s, and their wives and daughters, 
travelled over the line by the first train — a special 
one — and after that the general public came with a 
rush. The stations at Brimley and Highcliffe were 
gayly decorated, and enlivened by the strains of two 
brass bands. There was a dejeuner at Highcliffe, and 
a dinner at the George at Brimley later on. 

After dinner some of the gentlemen, of whom Lord 
Loughton was one, sat rather late over their wine, so 
that it was close upon midnight before they finally 
broke up. Their carriages were waiting for them at 
the door, the earl’s brougham among the number. 
Just as they were lighting a last cigar on the steps 
of the hotel, and wishing each other good-night, they 


A BARREN TITLE. 


159 


were struck by a sudden ruddy glare in the sky no 
great distance away, and next minute a man rushed 
from a narrow turning close by, crying “ Fire ! tire !” 
at the top of his voice. 

“Let us go and see the fire,” said Captain Van 
Loo, on whom the champagne had not been without 
its effect. 

The earl, who was probably the most sober of the 
party, and who had seen many big fires in London 
in his time, was far more inclined for going home 
to bed than for going anywhere else at that un- 
timely hour; but Mr. Plume, the great contractor, 
had already taken one of his arms and Van Loo 
the other, and as the rest of the gentlemen seemed 
desirous of going, the earl gave way and went with 
them, their broughams being left in front of the 
hotel. 

The gentlemen made rather a noisy party, but 
were not so far gone as not to know what they 
were about. Following the flying feet of the ever- 
growing crowd, they found themselves in a few 
minutes in one of the lowest streets of the town, 
and close to the burning house. A number of po- 
lice were already there — Brimley could only boast 
about a dozen men all told — together with the town 
engine, which was too small to be of any real service 
in an emergency like the present one. 

The sergeant on duty, recognizing the earl and 
his friends, made way for them to pass into the 
inner ring, volunteering at the same time the infor- 
mation that the burning house had been let out in 
floors to different families, that a woman who took 


160 


A BARREN TITLE. 


in mangling bad rented the ground floor, and that 
it was in one of her rooms that the fire had origi- 
nated. That the whole house was doomed any one 
could see at a glance; indeed, the two lower floors 
were partly burned out already, and every minute 
the exultant flames were climbing higher. It was a 
house of four or five stories, and had evidently at 
one time been inhabited by well-to-do people. 

“ Another half-hour and the roof will go,” said 
Mr. Plume, regarding the affair from a contractor’s 
point of view. ‘‘Every misfortune brings a bless- 
ing in its train. This place will have to be rebuilt 
by somebody, and just now trade is anything but 
lively.” 

“ I suppose there’s no fear, constable, of any one 
having been left inside the house?” queried the earl. 

“Not much fear of that, my lord; the first thing 
we did after the alarm was to rouse the people and 
get them all out.” 

Van Loo passed his cigar-case round. “Almost 
as good as a firework night at the Palace,” he re- 
marked. “Another bottle or two of Heidsieck 
would improve the occasion vastly.” 

“ What squirts the fire-engines are in these pro- 
vincial towns,” said Mr. Wingfield. “ When once 
the flames get fairly hold they seem of no use what- 
ever.” 

Flames and smoke were now issuing from all the 
windows except those of the top story, which peered 
out, like two black and sullen eyes, heedless of every- 
thing that was happening below. 

Suddenly a woman, who had made her way 


A BARREN TITLE. 


161 


through the crowd by main force, appeared on the 
scene. Haggard and wild-eyed, with streaming hair, 
torn shawl, and bedraggled gown, she fell on her 
knees before the constable, and, seizing him by the 
arm, cried, in a voice that was hoarse with agony : 
u My child — where’s my child ? Has anybody seen 
her? Has anybody got her out of the burning 
house ? Oh, sir, tell me where is she !” 

“ How old was your child, and in which room was 
she sleeping?” asked the policeman. 

“ She’s three years old, and she was in bed in the 
top back room. Oh, sir, do tell me where she is l” 

The constable called to another one, and the two 
held a brief conference in whispers. Then, turning 
to the woman, he said, “ Ho such child as the one 
you speak of was found in the house. Are you sure 
she was there ?” 

a Sure! Good heavens! didn’t I put her to bed 
with my own hands at eight o’clock, and the darling 
never wakes till morning ! As soon as my little one 
was in bed I set off for my sister’s at the other end 
of the town, who’s ill, and there I’ve been ever since. 
Oh, sir, I must have my child ! God has taken 
them all from me but her. He can’t intend that 
she should be burned to death !” 

The sergeant whispered to his companion again, 
who ran off to another group of policemen a little 
distance away, but only to return next minute, bring- 
ing word that no such child had been rescued from 
the burning tenement. Meanwhile word had run 
through the crowd that Dinah King’s little girl was 
still in the house. The news thrilled all there as if 
11 


162 


A BARREN TITLE. 


they had one pulse and one heart. One sharp-witted 
fellow, calling to his friends, ran in search of a lad- 
der. Fortunately he had not far to go. In a very 
few minutes the ladder, borne on a dozen stalwart 
shoulders, pierced the crowd, and was reared on end 
so that its top rested against the sill of one of the 
upper windows. From the windows in a line below 
that one came long, flickering tongues of flame 
which strQve to lick the ladder and wrap round its 
rungs as if they would fain claim it also as their 
prey. The lower floor had fallen in by this time, 
and the interior was like a glowing furnace, but the 
strong beams of the upper stories still held their 
own, although the flooring here and there was burned 
through, and thin snakes of flame were coiling 
round the doors and window-sills. 

Now that the ladder was in position there was a 
moment’s hesitation among the little crowd at the 
foot of it. In order to reach the topmost window it 
was necessary to pass the two lower ones, which 
were as open mouths to the furnace inside. “Let 
me have a try,” said one of the firemen, and next 
moment he was climbing the ladder with nimble 
feet. Past the two windows he went without pause, 
although the heat must have been all but unbeara- 
ble, and was quickly perched on the sill of the up- 
per window and breaking away the framework with 
his axe. Then from the throbbing crowd came a 
wild cheer of encouragement. But the moment the 
framework was broken away dense volumes of black 
smoke came swirling out, and it was then seen how 
fallacious was the hope that the fire had not yet 


A BARREN TITLE. 


163 


made its way as far as the upper rooms. Durham, 
the fireman, plunged into the thick smoke, but only 
to struggle back to the window next minute, blinded 
and half stilled. Another fireman sprang to the as- 
sistance of his mate, and climbed the ladder like a 
lamplighter. Again a ringing cheer burst from the 
crowd. As soon as the second man had joined the 
first they disappeared together inside the room. A 
brief, breathless interval, and then, as the smoke 
cleared away a little, the two men could again be 
seen standing at the window — but without the child. 

“ The staircase is on fire and we can do nothing,” 
one of them shouted. 

In the silence that followed the crackling of the 
burning rafters could plainly be heard. 

The mother had been on her knees all this time, 
her fingers pressed to her eyes, praying audibly to 
Heaven to give her back her little one. She now 
sprang to her feet and rushed to the foot of the lad- 
der. “Let me go!” she cried. “The fire sha’n’t 
keep me back ! She’s the only one I’ve left, and I 
can’t lose her.” 

It was evident that the woman was half dis- 
traught. Up the ladder she would have gone had 
not strong arms held her back. 

“It’s no use, mistress, not a bit,” said the kindly 
sergeant. “ If they two can’t reach the child no- 
body can. The poor thing’s out of its suffering by 
this time.” 

“Ho — no — no!” cried the woman,, passionately. 
“ The fire hasn’t reached the little room at the back 
yet. My pretty one’s waiting there — waiting for 


164 


A BARREN TITLE. 


her mother to fetch her, and — O my God! — you 
won’t let me go !” 

From the midst of the little crowd of gentlemen 
quietly smoking their cigars Lord Longhton stepped 
forth and walked to the foot of the ladder. “ What 
are you going to do, my lord?” asked Mr. Wingfield, 
anxiously. 

“ I am going to see for myself whether the child * 
cannot be got at,” answered the earl, as he proceeded 
to turn up the collar of his overcoat and to fix his 
glass in his eye. 

“But it’s madness — sheer madness!” urged Sir 
James Bence. 

“If anybody could save the child the firemen 
could,” said Mr. Plume. 

“In any case I’ll go and see for myself,” persisted 
the earl. * 

“ Let m^ beg of you, my lord, to listen to reason,” 
said Mr. Wingfield, laying a hand on the earl’s arm. 

“ Only a washerwoman’s brat,” said Captain Van 
Loo, with a shrug. “The world holds plenty more 
of the same breed.” 

The earl said no word more, but began to mount 
the ladder. Up he went, slowly and carefully* — be- 
ing no longer so young as he once had been — past 
the first window, past the second, with their greedy 
tongues of fire that strained forth to sting him. An 
utter silence fell upon the crowd. They all knew 
by this time who the third man was. Nothing 
could be heard save the regular beat of the engine 
and the subdued roar of the flames. Men’s hearts 
throbbed faster, women’s eyes brimmed with tears. 


A BARREN TITLE. 


165 


The poor despairing creature down on her knees 
gripped fast hold of the policeman’s hand as though 
it were an anchor of hope, and prayed as she had 
never prayed before that the brave gentleman might 
find her one pet lamb and bring it back alive to its 
mother’s arms. 

The top was reached at last, and the firemen held 
out their hands and helped the new-comer into the 
room. Of what passed among the three men those 
below knew nothing, but a minute after the earl 
joined the others they were all lost in the smoke 
that filled the room. It was a time of slow agony 
to the waiting mother below. A thousand eyes 
were fixed on the little window. First one dark 
figure and then another could be dimly discerned 
for a moment, as they came for a breath of air be- 
fore plunging into the smoke again. 

All at once a great shout rent the sky, and the 
mother knew without looking up that her child was 
saved. “That’s him in the middle — that’s the earl 
with the child in his arms?” she heard those round 
her say. “Now he’s given the young ’un to Jim 
Durham, and Jim’s coming down with it first of all. 
That’s the earl following him, and that’s Frank Web- 
ber coming last.” 

Down they came, one after another, the foremost 
fireman with the child in his arms. Nothing could 
now restrain the mob. They swept away the thin 
barrier of police and crowded round the ladder, 
every one pressing forward to shake hands with the 
earl. 

But the earl could not shake hands with any one. 


166 


A BARREN TITLE. 


While he was still some five or six feet from the 
ground a veil seemed to drop suddenly over his eyes, 
the strength went out of his hands and knees, and 
he fell backward like one dead. A hundred arms 
were held out to catch him. Then, and then only, 
it was seen how terribly he was burned. 

“We must carry him to the George,” said Mr. 
Wingfield, sadly; “and let some one hurry for the 
best doctor that can be had for love or money.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


p. p. o. 

The Earl of Loughton lay dying at the George 
Hotel, Brimley. They had not ventured to move 
him to Laurel Cottage. For the first day or two 
some hopes had been entertained of his recovery, but 
before long certain symptoms developed themselves 
which left no room for doubt as to what the final 
issue must be. 

The dowager countess was in Scotland when she 
heard the news. Slingsby Boscombe read it out 
aloud to her at the breakfast-table. They were vis- 
iting among some family connections in the Lo- 
tliians. 

“ It was the deed of a hero !” said Slingsby, en- 
thusiastically, as he laid down the paper. 

“ It was the deed of a ganache who would risk his 
life for the sake of a nine days’ notoriety,” snarled 
the countess. “ Read the two last lines again.” 

“ ‘ The latest reports add that little or no hope 
seems to be entertained of the earl’s recovery,’” re- 
peated Slingsby, from the newspaper. 

“ Then it is quite possible that the earldom may 
be yours before you are many days older.” 

“ Oh, Lady Loughton 1” 

“ Why profess a regret which I cannot feel ? I 


168 


A BARREN TITLE. 


tell you candidly that I hope the man won’t recover. 
Yon and I must start for Brimley by the next train. 
Meanwhile, you had better telegraph to Mr. Flicker 
to meet us there.” 

The countess and Mr. Boscombe reached Brimley 
Station next forenoon, where her ladyship’s carriage 
was awaiting their arrival. Slingsby, never having 
met the earl but once, had a dread of being looked 
upon as an intruder at such a time, and would much 
rather have stayed away, but the countess altogether 
scouted his objections, and insisted upon taking him 
with her; and she was certainly too old to venture 
on such a journey alone. 

Slingsby wished most heartily that the fire had 
never happened. So far as he was concerned, if the 
earl were to die matters would be brought to a cli- 
max far sooner than was convenient for him, and his 
secret marriage be a secret no longer. 

The first thing the countess did, after reaching the 
hotel, was to seek a private interview with Doctor 
Ward. 

“A lamentable affair this, doctor,” she said, ex- 
tending a couple of frigid fingers, and motioning him 
to a chair. 

“Very lamentable, indeed, madam.” 

“May I ask what the condition of your patient is 
by this time?” 

The doctor did not answer in words, but gave his 
eyebrows and shoulders a simultaneous shrug. 

“Dear me! as bad as that, eh?” The countess 
intended both her words and the tone in which they 
were spoken to be sympathetic, but the look of sat- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


169 


isfaction on her crafty old face altogether belied her 
intentions. 

“I presume there will be no objection to my see- 
ing your patient in the course of the day?” 

“If the earl himself has no objection, madam, I 
can have none. Indeed, I may add that any relatives 
or friends who may be desirous of seeing his lord- 
ship had better be summoned with as little delay as 
possible.” 

“Except myself, his lordship has no near rela- 
tives,” said the countess. “I will, of course, stay 
with him till all is over.” 

Her ladyship having disposed of a cutlet and a 
glass and a half of old port, and having had a forty 
minutes’ snooze in an easy-chair, sent word in to the 
earl that she should like to see him if he were at lib- 
erty to receive her. The earl gave orders that she 
should be admitted at once. 

But before this took place Lord Loughton had re- 
quested that a telegram might be despatched to 
Clement Fildew. It was sent in the name of the 
landlord of the hotel, and ran as follows: “You are 
wanted immediately at the George Hotel, Brimley, 
on a matter of life and death. Do not delay.” 

Clement wondered greatly at receiving such a 
summons, but at once prepared to obey it. The 
most likely solution that presented itself to him was 
that he was wanted to paint the portrait of some 
one who was in extremis , so he went prepared ac- 
cordingly. 

The countess and Mr.Boscombe had reached Brim- 
ley about one o’clock. The train Clement travelled 


170 


A BARREN TITLE. 


by was timed to reach there about 4.30. As it hap- 
pened, Mr. Flicker went down by the same train. 

The countess entered the dying man’s room with 
hushed footsteps, and, going up to the side of the bed, 
she gazed down with steel-cold eyes at the white face 
upturned to meet her own. Suffering had already 
done much to refine and ennoble a face which at one 
time had lacked little on the score of manly beauty. 
The hard, worldly lines had been smoothed out, and 
with them had vanished a certain sensuous fulness 
of outline which of late years had developed itself 
more and more. But when the earl’s eyes met those 
of the countess they lighted up with somewhat of 
their old gay, malicious twinkle. 

“ I am grieved to find you in this condition,” said 
her ladyship. 

“ And I am grieved to be so found. Mais dest 
la fortune de la guerre, and it were useless to repine. 
I regret that I am not in a condition to entertain 
your ladyship more becomingly.” 

“ You do not suffer much pain, I hope?” 

“None whatever now, and that’s the deuce of it. 
While there was pain there was hope; now there is 
neither, and here I am, left in the lurch.” 

“While there’s life one should never give up 
hoping.” 

The earl made a slight grimace. 

“I know, and your ladyship, after your interview 
with Dr. Ward, doubtles§ knows, that there is but 
one thing now to look forward to. But I shall not 
be so ill-mannered as to be long a-dying.” 

There was silence for a little while. The countess 


A BARREN TITLE. 


171 


seated herself on a chair by the bedside. Presently 
the dying man said, in a musing sort of tone, “ Per- 
haps I may fall across Cousin Charley when I get out 
yonder. Who knows ? If we should meet, I won- 
der whether he will recognize me, and whether he 
will be sorry that he did not lend me that three thou- 
sand pounds which would have made my life such a 
different one. In any case I won’t forget to give 
your ladyship’s love to him.” 

The countess moved uneasily on her chair. 

“It is possible that your ladyship and I may meet 
in the Elysian Fields before long,” resumed the earl, 
speaking in a slow, calm way, very unusual with 
him. “Time flies, and none of us grow younger. I 
suppose they keep a list of the latest arrivals of per- 
sons of distinction. If they do, I shall not fail to 
consult it frequently, and look out for your lady- 
ship’s arrival.” 

“ This is terrible,” muttered the countess to her- 
self. “ The man is a perfect heathen.” 

After a little while the countess said, “ If there is 
anything I can do for you — if there are any little 
wishes or commissions you would like to have at- 
tended to, I need hardly say that you may command 
me in any way.” 

“You are very kind,” said the earl, and then, after 
a moment’s pause, he added, dryly — “as you have 
always been. But any little wants or wishes of mine 
will naturally receive attention at the hands of my 
son, Lord Shoreham.” 

“Your son! Lord Shoreham!” gasped the count- 
ess, as she rose slowly to her feet, and drew herself 
up to her fullest height. 


172 


A BARREN TITLE. 


“ Precisely so. I am expecting him every min- 
ute. I shall be happy to introduce him to your lady- 
ship.’’ 

Words would be powerless to express a tithe of 
what the dowager felt. For a little while her wrath 
was speechless because it was too deep for utterance. 
Her face looked like that of some fabled witch, with 
its expression of concentrated venom and suppressed 
rage. Her head began to wag portentously, and in 
a little while her tongue recovered from its tempo- 
rary paralysis. 

“ A son, eh ?” she cried, and her voice rose to a 
half-shriek. “ So, then, you die as you have lived — 
a swindler to the last !” 

“No missiles from your tongue, madam, can reach 
me now,” said the earl, with an easy smile. “ I have 
got beyond their range. Your ladyship’s cunning 
has overreached itself and fallen on the other side.” 

At this moment there came a tap at the door, and 
the head of the nurse was intruded into the room. 
u Mr. Clement Fildew to see your lordship,” she said, 
in appropriately subdued tones. 

“Show him in at once,” said the earl, and next 
moment Clement entered the room. 

He gazed around for a moment, and then his eyes 
fell on the pallid, sunken face on the pillow. “Fa- 
ther! you here!” he cried, striding to the bedside. 
“ They told me that I was wanted by the Earl of 
Loughton.” 

“I am the Earl of Loughton, and this” — turning 
to the countess — “ is my son, Clement Fildew Lor- 
rimore, otherwise Lord Shoreham.” 


A BARREN TITLE. 


178 


The countess stared for a moment or two into the 
young man’s bright, handsome face, and then her 
hands grasped the bed as if to support herself. 
Turning to the earl with a grin of fiendish spite 
that showed the whole range of her artificial teeth, 
she shook a yellow claw in his face, and then, with 
many strange noises and gurglings under her breath, 
she tottered slowly from the room. 

Ten minutes later her horses’ shoes struck fire from 
the pavement of the inn yard as they started on their 
journey to Ringwood, carrying with them the dow- 
ager, Mr. Boscombe, and Mr. Flicker, the latter of 
whom, for once, came in for a terrible wigging from 
her ladyship, for having omitted to find out that 
“ that wretched creature” had a son in hiding. 

Father and son remained closeted together for up- 
wards of an hour. Then Clement came out and 
summoned the nurse. The earl was tired and wanted 
to sleep. Clement took his hat and went for a long 
walk. Time and solitude were needed to enable him 
to familiarize his mind in some degree with the 
astounding news that had just been told him. Later 
in the day the earl sent for him again. 

“In a tin box,” he said, “labelled with my name, 
and deposited at Mellish’s bank, you will find all the 
documents necessary to enable you to prove your 
identity, which the other side will no doubt compel 
you to do before admitting your right to the title. 
Wellclose has instructions with respect to my will, 
and he will bring it in the morning to be signed and 
witnessed. It’s not much that I have to leave you, 


174 


A BARREN TITLE. 


my boy — more’s the pity. Merely a few paltry 
hundreds, the result of one or two lucky speculations. 
Yours will be a barren title indeed. But if you are 
a wise man you will speedily alter that state of 
things. You will give up painting, of course. Who 
ever heard of an earl that painted pictures, except it 
were for amusement ? Equally, of course, you will 
marry money. The exigencies of your position ren- 
der that imperative. There are the two Miss Larkins 
— good, - modest, ladylike girls, though their father 
was a pill doctor. Each of them will have fifteen 
thousand pounds when she comes of age, and, no 
doubt, Orlando would give another five to secure an 
earl for his brother-in-law. You might do worse. 
I’ll speak to Wingfield about you to-morrow, and see 
whether you can’t have the railway chairmanship as 
my successor. Marry Fanny Larkins, and stick to 
Wingfield ; there’s your programme, and in a dozen 
years, if you play your cards well, you ought to be 
worth a hundred thousand pounds.” 

To all this Clement yielded a tacit acquiescence. 
If his father’s last hours would be rendered more 
easy by the thought that everything would be done 
in accordance with his wishes, why disturb him by 
urging anything to the contrary ? Soon he would 
be where the sum of this world’s troubles and anxie- 
ties is of less account than the lightest snowflake that 
drops through the midnight on the summit of Mont 
Blanc. 

The earl passed a restless night and was a little 
light-headed at times. He seemed better in the 
morning, and was able to see Mr. Wellclose for half 


A BARREN- TITLE. 


175 

an hour. During the rest of the day Clement never 
left him for more than a minute or two at a time. 
It was evident that he was growing weaker with 
every hour. He ceased to talk much as the after- 
noon advanced, but seemed content to lie with closed 
eyes, but not asleep, and with one of Clement’s hands 
in his — thinking, who shall say of what ? 

As the autumn daylight was deepening into dusk 
he fell asleep, and Dr. Ward, coming in about that 
time, pronounced it doubtful whether he would wake 
again. Nor, indeed, did he, to the extent of being 
conscious of where he was, or of recognizing those 
about him. By and by his mind began to wander 
again. At five minutes before twelve he died. His 
last faintly murmured words were, u Where’s your 
hand, Kitty ? I can’t see you in the dark.” 

When the earl’s will came to be read it was found 
that he had left Clement all he had to leave, with the 
exception of fifty guineas to the child whose life he 
had saved at the expense of his own. 

As soon as the funeral was over — the earl being 
buried in the same grave with his wife — Clement 
went quietly back to his painting. Mr. Wingtield 
and Mr. Plume had proffered their services in vari- 
ous ways, but Clement loved his art too well to be 
tempted from it into the more glittering paths of 
financial speculation. He went back to his studio as 
he had left it, plain Clement Fildew. Not even to 
Tony Macer did he breathe a word concerning the 
strange things that had befallen him. He simply 
said that his father was dead, and that was all. Not 
from his lips should the world ever hear a word re* 


176 


A BARREN TITLE. 


specting that title which he was told he could now 
claim, but which he was determined utterly to ab- 
jure. Not even to Cecilia would he speak of it till 
they should be husband and wife. Of course, his 
marriage would now have to be delayed a little 
while. Cecilia had gained her point in this matter, 
but after a fashion she had never dreamed of. In 
those hours of trouble the white wings of her love 
seemed to fold Clement more closely round than 'they 
had ever done before. 

Mr. Slings by Boscombe took an early opportunity 
of putting a number of questions to Mr. Flicker re- 
specting the earl and his sou. Of the latter individ- 
ual the lawyer knew absolutely nothing. He had 
been as much astounded to hear of the existence of 
such a person as the countess had been, and he blamed 
himself severely for having allowed himself to be so 
thoroughly duped by the earl’s plausible, off-handed 
assumption that he had never been anything but a 
bachelor. With regard to the earl he told Slingsby 
pretty nearly all that he knew. 

One morning, about three weeks after the funeral, 
Clement was surprised at his studio by a visit from 
Mr. Boscombe. The latter, acting on the informa- 
tion given him by Flicker, had gone in the first in- 
stance to the Brown Bear, and had there ascer- 
tained Mr. Fildew’s late address. From Hayfield 
Street he had been directed to Clement’s lodgings, 
and from there to the studio. 

“ I was awfully sorry not to have met you at Brim- 
ley, but the dowager carried me off by main force,” 
said Slingsby, after shaking hands heartily with Clem, 


A BARREN TITLE. 


177 


ind condoling with him on his loss. a I hope you 
won’t for one moment think that I bear you the 
slightest ill-will on account of losing the title. I as- 
sure you that I care nothing for it. I take no inter- 
est in politics. I am not cut out for shining in soci- 
ety. All I ask for is a little den in the country, with 
a big garden, a horse or two, plenty of fishing, and 
a few friends whose tastes are something like my 
own. 

“ I w T ish with all my heart that the title were 
yours,” said Clem. “ It is a useless acquisition, as 
far as I am concerned.” 

“ But you are not going to let it remain in abey- 
ance, I hope ?” 

“I certainly am. What has a poor painter to do 
with titles? My only ambition is to be known by 
my works.” 

Then, little by little, and with considerable hesita- 
tion and stammering, the real object of Slingsby’s 
visit was made apparent. He wanted Clement to 
share with him the income which, as soon as he should 
be twenty-five years old, would begin to accrue to 
him from the Loughton property, in accordance with 
the will of the last earl but one. “ Such a will ought 
never to have been made,” said Slingsby, “ unless it 
had first been ascertained beyond doubt that there 
was no direct heir in existence. So, with your per- 
mission, we will divide the money between us, and 
even then I shall have more than I shall know what 
to do with.” 

Clement, of course, would agree to no such prop- 
osition. The world should know him only as Clem- 
12 ' 


178 


A BARREN TITLE. 


ent Fildew, a painter of pictures for his daily bread. 
Slingsby was evidently much disappointed. Finding 
all his arguments of no avail, he rose to go ; but, be- 
fore leaving, he took a glance round the room at the 
various canvases, finished and unfinished, some of 
them Clem’s and some Tony Macer’s, that were either 
stretched on the easels or hanging on the walls. 
Over the fireplace hung a little sketch in crayons of 
two female heads. “ I ought to know those faces,” 
said Slingsby, as soon as his eyes lighted on the 
sketch. “ One of them is the likeness of my cousin 
Cecilia, and the other that of her friend, Miss 
Browne.” 

“ Yes. I had the honor of painting Miss Collump- 
ton’s portrait — and also that of Miss Browne.” 

The tell-tale colorjmshed to Clement’s face as he 
finished speaking. Slingsby, slow of apprehension 
in some things, did not fail to notice this. 

“ Here’s a romance!” he muttered to himself. “I 
verily believe our friend the earl has fallen in love 
with the stately Mora. Just the kind of girl to take 
a painter’s eye.” 

“If it would not be looked upon as an intrusion,” 
said Slingsby, as he stood for a moment with Clem- 
ent’s hand in his, “ I should like to bring a couple 
of friends of mine to-morrow morning to see one or 
two of the things you have here.” 

“ I shall be very pleased to see both you and your 
friends,” said Clement, heartily. 

A little before noon next day Slingsby, Cecilia, 
and Mora alighted at the door of Clement’s studio. 
Slingsby had got the girls to promise overnight that 


A BARREN TITLE. 


179 


they would go with him next morning, to see some 
pictures, painted by a friend of his, which he was 
very anxious they should not miss. Absorbed in 
conversation, neither Cecilia nor Mora noticed in 
which direction they were being driven, and it was 
not till the brougham drew up that they discovered 
where they were. They interchanged looks of con- 
sternation which were not lost on Slingsby. 

“ This is Mr. Fildew’s studio,” said Cecilia. u We 
have been here before.” 

“I am quite aware of that,” answered Slingsby. 
“But since you were here last Mr. Fildew has paint- 
ed a really remarkable picture, which I am very anx- 
ious that you should see.” 

After this there was nothing for it but to make 
their way to the studio, and leave the result to the 
chapter of accidents. 

As they entered the room Clement put down his 
brush and palette and came forward to greet them. 
But, before any one else had time to say a word, 
Slingsby burst in. “ Permit me to have the honor of 
introducing you to the Earl of Loughton,” he said. 
“Your lordship has met these ladies before. My 
cousin, Miss Collumpton : Miss Browne.” 

“The Earl of Loughton!” exclaimed both ladies, 
in a breath. 

“ Miss Collumpton ! Miss Browne !” gasped Clem- 
ent, as he gripped Slingsby by the arm. “You are 
mistaken. This is Miss Collumpton, and this” — tak- 
ing Cecilia by the hand — “is Miss Browne, whom, 
now that you have told her something which I 
did not intend her to know for a long time to 


180 


A BARREN TITLE. 


come, I beg to introduce to you as my promised 
wife.” 

In speechless bewilderment Slingsby stared from 
one to the other. Twice he strove to speak, but 
words failed him. Cecilia and Mora, too, were like 
people lost in a maze, while on Clement’s face there 
was a look of fatuity such as no one had ever seen 
there before. 

And so the curtain falls, and our little tragi-com- 
edy comes to an end. 

Clement and Cecilia were married the following 
spring, when the woodland ways were all aglow with 
bursting buds and delicate blooms. After the wed- 
ding they set out for Italy, which Clement had long 
been desirous of visiting for artistic purposes. His 
brush and palette are still as dear to him as ever they 
were, and Cecilia does not wish it otherwise. He 
still paints under his old name of Clement Fildew, 
and in the Republic of Art he is known by no other. 

The Dowager Countess of Loughton shut her 
doors inexorably against the new earl and his wife. 
She vowed that she would never see Cecilia again, 
and she kept her word. She died in the winter fol- 
lowing her niece’s marriage, and bequeathed all she 
was possessed of to Mr. Boscombe. She died in ig- 
norance of Slingsby’s marriage, otherwise she would 
probably have altered her will at the last moment. 

Slingsby lives the life of a quiet country gentle- 
man, and in it he finds his happiness. He, is lord- 
lieutenant of his county, but beyond that he has no 
ambition, political or otherwise. He has a large fam- 


A BARREN TITLE. 


181 


ily and a large estate. He is a pattern husband, an 
excellent father, and the best angler within twenty 
miles of his house. He has also some capital shoot- 
ing^ which his friends do not fail to appreciate. 

Miss Browne succeeded in the ambition of her 
life: slow, steady patience such as hers generally 
does succeed in the long run. A rich iron-master 
saw her, approved of her, proposed, and was accepted. 
Mora lives at a splendid place in Wales, and is happy 
in her cold, stately, unsympathetic way. It is to be 
hoped that her husband, who is said by some people 
to have married her for love, is equally satisfied. 

Tony Macer now writes A.R.A. after his name, 
and the dignity will lose nothing at his hands. He 
is still a bachelor, and likely to remain one. His 
house in St. John’s Wood is presided over by a lame 
sister, and has a crowd of poor relations perpetually 
hovering round it; but Tony is never so happy as 
when doing a kindness to some one. He and “ Clem- 
ent Fildew” are as great chums as ever they were, 
and smoke many a “short gun ” together over their 
talk of days gone by, and the pictures they hope to 
paint in days to come. Mr. Macer’s portrait of Lady 
Loughton in last year’s Academy was one of the hits 
of the season. 


THE END. 




























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Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


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, PRIOR 

BRONTE’S (Charlotte) Shirley. Ill’d. . 12mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper $ 50 

The Professor. Illustrated... 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 

Villette. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper 

BRONTE’S (Anne) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Ill’d... . 12mo, Cloth 1 

BRONTE’S (Emily) Wuthering Heights. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 

BULWER’S (Lytton) A Strange Story. Illustrated I2mo, Cloth 1 

8vo, Paper 

Devereux 8vo, Paper 

Ernest Mai tra vers 8vo, Paper 

Godolphin 8vo, Paper 

Kenelm Chillingly 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 8vo, Paper 

Leila , 12mo, Cloth, 1 

Night and Morning 8vo, Paper 

Paul Clifford 8vo, Paper 

Pausanias the Spartan 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

Pelham 8vo, Paper 

Rienzi t 8vo, Paper 

The Caxtons 12mo, Cloth 1 

The Coming Race 12mo, Cloth, 1 00; 12mo, Paper 

The Last Days of Pompeii 8vo, Paper, 25 cents ; 4to, Paper 

The Parisiaps. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 8 vo, Paper 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine.. 8vo, Paper 

What will He do with it? 8vo, Paper 

Zanoni 8vo, Paper 

COLLINS’S (Wilkie) Novels. Ill’d Library Edition. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 
After Dark, and Other Stores. — Antonina. — Armadale. — Basil. — 
Hide-and-Seek. — Man and Wife. — My Miscellanies. — No Name. 

— Poor Miss Finch. — The Dead Secret. — The Law and the Lady. 

— The Moonstone. — The New Magdalen. — The Queen of Hearts. 

— The Two Destinies. — The Woman in White. 

Antonina 8vo, Paper 

Armadale. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

“ I Say No ”.16mo, Cloth, 50 cts. ; 16mo, Paper, 35 cts. ; 4to, Paper 

Man and Wife 4to, Paper 

My Lady’s Money 32mo, Paper 

No Name. Illustrated :8vo, Paper 

Percy and the Prophet 32mo, Paper 

Poor Miss Finch. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 10; 8vo, Paper 

The Law and the Lady. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Moonstone. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The New Magdalen 8vo, Paper 

The Two Destinies. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Woman in White. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

CRAIN'S (Miss G. M.) Anne Warwick 8vo, Paper 

Dorcas 4to, Paper 

Fortune’s Marriage 4to, Paper 

Godfrey Helstone 4to, Paper 

Hard to Bear 8vo, Paper 

Mildred 8vo, Paper 


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Harper (Sc Brothers’ Popular Novels. 


CRAIK’S (Miss G. M.) Sydney 4to, Paper 

Sylvia’s Choice 8vo, Paper 

Two Women 4to, Paper 

DICKENS’S (Charles) Works. Household Edition. Illustrated. 8vo. 

Set of 16 vols., Cloth, in box 22 00 


15 
30 

16 


A Tale of Two Cities.Paper $ 
Cloth 1 

Barnaby Budge Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Bleak House Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Christmas Stories. ...Paper 1 
' Cloth 1 

David Copperfield. . .Paper 1 
Cloth 1 

DombeyandSon Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Great Expectations.. .Paper 1 
Cloth 1 

Little Dorrit Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Martin Chuzzlewit.... Paper 1 


50 

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Martin Chuzzlewit Cloth 1 

Nicholas Nickleby Paper 1 

Cloth 1 

Oliver Twist .Paper 

Cloth 1 

Our Mutual Friend Paper 1 

Cloth 1 


Pickwick Papers Paper 1 


Cloth 

Pictures from Italy, Sketches by 
Boz, American Notes ...Paper 
Cloth 

The Old Curiosity Shop... Paper 
Cloth 

Uncommercial Traveller, Hard 
Times, Edwin Drood... Paper 
Cloth 


Pickwick Papers 4to, Paper 

The Mudfog Papers, &c 4to, Paper 

Mystery of Edwin Drood. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Hard times 8vo, Paper 

Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 

DE MILLE’S A Castle in Spain. Ill’d... .8vo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 

Cord and Creese. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The American Baron. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Cryptogram. Illustrated 8v,o, Paper 

The Dodge Club. Illustrated... .8vo, Paper, 60 cents; 8vo, Cloth 
The Living Link. Illustrated. ...8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 

DISRAELI’S (Earl of Beaconsfield) Endymion 4to, Paper 

The Young Duke 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper 

ELIOT’S (George) Works. Lib. Ed. 12 vols. Ill’d...l2mo, Cl., per vol. 

Popular Edition. 12 vols. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 

Adam Bede. — Daniel Deronda, 2 vols. — Essays and Leaves from a 
Note-Book. — Felix Holt, the Radical. — Mlddlemarch, 2 vols. — 
Romola. — Scenes of Clerical Life, and Silas Marner. — The Mill 
on the Floss. — Poems : with Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil. 
Fireside Edition. Containing the above in 6 vols. ( Sold only in 

Sets.) 12mo, Cloth 

Adam Bede. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

Amos Barton 32mo, Paper 

Brother Jacob. — The Lifted Veil 32mo, Paper 

Daniel Deronda 8vo, Paper 

Felix Holt, the Radical 8vo, Paper 

Janet’s Repentance 32mo, Paper 


60 

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Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 5 


: ELIOT’S (George) Middlemarch 8vo, Paper $ 75 

Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story 32mo, Paper 20 

Romola. Illustrated. 8 vo, Paper 50 

Silas Marner 12mo, Paper 20 

' Scenes of Clerical Life 8vo, Paper 50 

The Mill on the Floss 8vo, Paper 60 

EDWARDS’S (A. B.) Barbara’s History 8vo, Paper 60 

Debenham’s Vow. Illustrated....' 8 vo, Paper 60 

Half a Million of Money 8vo, Paper 60 

Lord Brackenbury...; 4to, Paper 16 

Miss Carew 8vo, Paper 36 

Mv Brother’s Wife 8vo, Paper 25 

EDWARDS’S (M. B.) Disarmed 4to, Paper 15 

Exchange No Robbery 4to, Paper 15 

Kitty 8vo, Paper 35 

Pearla 4to, Paper 20 

The Flower of Doom, and Other Stories 16mo, Paper 25 

FARJEON’S An Island Pearl. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

At the Sign of the Silver Flagon 8vo, Paper 25 

Blade-o’-Grass. 1 Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

Golden Grain. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

Great Porter Square 4 to, Paper 20 

Jessie Trim 8vo, Paper 35 

Joshua Marvel 8vo, Paper 40 

Love’s Harvest 4 to, Paper 20 

Love’s Victory 8 vo, Paper 20 

Shadows on the Snow Illustrated 8vo, Paper 30 

The Bells of Penraven 4to, Paper 10 

The Duchess of Rosemary Lane 8vo, Paper 35 

The King of No-Land. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

j GASKELL’S (Mrs.) Cousin Phillis 8vo, Paper 20 

Cranford 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

Mary Barton 8vo, Paper, 40 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

Moorland Cottage 18mo, Cloth 75 

My Lady Ludlow 8vo, Paper 20 

Right at Last, &c 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Sylvia’s Lovers 8vo, Paper 40 

Wives and Daughters. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

GIBBON’S (C.) A Hard Knot 12mo, Paper 25 

A Heart’s Problem 4to, Paper 10 

By Mead and Stream 4to, Paper 20 

For Lack of Gold 8vo, Paper 35 

For the King 8vo, Paper 30 

Heart’s Delight 4to, Paper 20 

In Honor Bound 4to, Paper 35 

Of High Degree 8vo, Paper 20 

Robin Gray 8vo, Paper 35 

Queen of the Meadow 4to, Paper 16 


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Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRICE i 

GIBBON’S (C.) The Braes of Yarrow 4to, Paper $ 20 

The Golden Shaft 4to, Paper 20 

HARDY’S (Thos.) Fellow-Townsmen 32ino, Paper 20 

A Laodicean. Illustrated 4 to, Paper 20 

Romantic Adventures of a MilkTnaid 4to, Paper 10 

HARRISON’S (Mrs.) Golden Rod 32mo, Paper 25 

Helen Troy 16 mo, Cloth 1 00 1 

HAY’S (M. C.) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper 15 

A Shadow on the Threshold 32mo, Paper 20 | 

Among the Ruins, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

At the Seaside, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

Bid Me Discourse 4to, Paper 10 

Dorothy’s Venture 4to, Paper 15 

For Her Dear Sake 4to, Paper 15 

Hidden Perils 8vo, Paper 25 

Into the Shade, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Carmichael’s Will 32mo, Paper 15 

Lester’s Secret 4to, Paper 20 ! 

Missing 32mo, Paper 20 i 

My First Offer, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Nora’s Love Test 8vo, Paper 25 

Old Myddelton’s Money 8vo, Paper 25 

Reaping the Whirlwind 32mo, Paper 20 

The Arundel Motto 8vo, Paper 25 

The Sorrow of a Secret 32mo, Paper 15 

The Squire’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 25 

Under Life’s Key, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 ( 

Victor and Vanquished 8vo, Paper 25 1 

HOEY’S (Mrs. C.) A Golden Sorrow 8vo, Paper 40 

All or Nothing 4to, Paper 15 

Kate Cronin’s Dowry „..32mo, Paper 15 

The Blossoming of an Aloe 8vo, Paper 30 

The Lover’s Creed 4to, Paper 20 

The Question of Cain ...,4to. Paper 20 

HUGO’S (Victor) Ninety-Three. Ill’d. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 8 vo, Paper 25 

The Toilers of the Sea. Ill’d 8vo, Cloth, 1 50; 8vo, Paper 50 

JAMES’S (Henry, Jun.) Daisy Miller 32mo, Paper 20 

An International Episode 32mo, Paper 20 

Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters 32tno, Paper 25 

The four above-mentioned works in one volume 4to, Paper 25 

Washington Square. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

JOHNSTON’S (R. M.) Dukesborough Tales. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Old Mark Langston 16mo, Cloth ] 00 

LANG’S (Mrs.) Dissolving Views... 16mo, Cloth, 50 cents ; 16mo, Paper 35 

LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Anteros 8vo, Paper 40 

Brakespeare 8 vo, Paper 40 

Breaking a Butterfly 8vo, Paper 35 

Guy Livingstone 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 4to, Paper 10 


Harper (Sc Brothers' Popular Novels. 


7 


LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Hagarene 8vo, Paper 

Maurice Dering 8vo, Paper 

Sans Merci 8vo, Paper 

Sword and Gown 8vo, Paper 

LEVER’S (Charles) A Day’s Ride 8vo, Paper 

Barrington 8vo, Paper 

Gerald Fitzgerald . . 8vo, Paper 

Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 00; 8 vo, Paper 

One of Them 8vo, Paper 

Roland Cashel. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Sir Brook Fosbrooke 8vo, Paper 

Sir Jasper Carew 8vo, Paper 

That Boy of Ndrcott’s. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly 8vo, Paper 

The Daltons 8vo, Paper 

The Fortunes of Glencore 8vo, Paper 

The Martins of Cro’ Martin 8vo, Paper 

Tony Butler 8vo, Paper 

j LILLIE’S (Mrs. L. C.) Prudence. Ill’d. 16mo, Cl., 90 cts. ; 16mo, Paper 

MCCARTHY’S (Justin) Comet of a Season 4to, Paper 

Donna Quixote 4to, Paper 

Maid of Athens 4to, Paper 

My Enemy’s Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

The Commander’s Statue 32mo, Paper 

The Waterdale Neighbors 8vo, Paper 

MACDONALD’S (George) Alec Forbes 8vo, Paper 

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 12rao, Cloth 

Donal Grant 4to, Paper 

Guild Court .....8vo, Paper 

Warlock o’ Glen warlock 4to, Paper 

Weighed and Wanting 4to, Paper 

MULOCK’S (Miss) A Brave Lady. Ill’d. 12mo, Cl., 90 cents. ; 8vo, Paper 

Agatha’s Husband. IK’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

A Legacy 12mo, Cloth 

A Life for a Life 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

A Noble Life 12mo, Cloth 

Avillion, and Other Tales 8vo, Paper 

Christian’s Mistake 12mo, Cloth 

Hannah. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

Head of the Family. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

His Little Mother .' 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 

John Halifax, Gentleman. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 

Miss Tommy 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 12mo, Paper 

Mistress and Maid 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

My Mother and I. Illustrated.. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

Nothing New - 8vo, Paper 

Ogilvies. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 


PBTOB 

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MULOCK’S (Miss) Olive. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper $ 

The Laurel Bush. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

The Woman’s Kingdom. Ill’d. . . 12rao, Cloth, 90 cts. ; 8vo, Paper 

Two Marriages 12mo, Cloth 

• Unkind Word, and Other Stories 12mo, Cloth 

Young Mrs. Jardine 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 4to, Paper 

MURRAY’S (D. C.) A Life’s Atonement 4to, Paper 

A Model Father 4to, Paper 

By the Gate of the Sea 4to, Paper, 15 cents ; 12mo, Paper 

Hearts 4to, Paper 

The Wav of the World 4to, Paper 

Yal Strange 4to, Paper 

Adrian Vidal. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

NORRIS’S (W. E.) A Man of His Word, &c 4to, Paper 

Heaps of Money 8vo, Paper 

Mademoiselle de Mersac 4to, Paper 

Matrimony 4to, Paper 

No New Thing 4to, Paper 

That Terrible Man 12mo, Paper 

Thirl by Hall. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

OLIPHANT’S (Laurence) Altiora Peto.4to, Paper, 20 ets. ; 16mo, Paper 

Piccadilly 16mo, Paper 

OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) Agnes 8vo, Paper 

A Son of the Soil 8vo, Paper 

Athelings 8vo, Paper 

Brownlows 8vo, Paper 

CaritA Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

Chronicles of Carlingford 8vo, Paper 

Days of My Life 12mo, Cloth : 

For Love and Life '. 8vo, Paper 

Harry Joscelyn 4to, Paper 

He That Will Not when He May ...4to, Paper 

Hester 4to, Paper 

Innocent. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

It was a Lover and His Lass 4to, Paper 

Lady Jane 4to, Paper 

Lucy Crofton 12mo, Cloth 

Madam 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents; 4to, Paper 

Madonna Marv 8vo, Paper 

Miss Marjoribanks 8vo, Paper 

Mrs. Arthur 8vo, Paper 

Ombra 8vo, Paper 

Phoebe, Junior 8vo, Paper 

Sir Tom 4to, Paper 

Squire Arden 8vo, Paper 

The Curate in Charge 8vo, Paper 

The Fugitives 4to! Paper 

The Greatest Heiress in England 4to, Paper 

The Ladies Lindores 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 


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OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) The Laird of Norlaw 12mo, Cloth ! w 

The Last of the Mortimers 12mo, Cloth* 1 

The Primrose Path 8vo, Paper 

The Story of Valentine and his Brother 8vo, Paper 

The Wizard’s Son 4to, Paper 

Within the Precincts 4to, Paper 

Young Musgrave 8vo, Paper 

PAYN’S (James) A Beggar on Horseback 8vo, Paper 

A Confidential Agent 4to, Paper 

A Grape from r Thorn 4to, Paper 

A Woman’s Vengeance 8vo, Paper 

At Her Mercy 8vo, Paper 

Bred in the Bone 8vo, Paper 

By Proxy 8vo, Paper 

Carlyon’s Year 8vo, Paper 

For Cash Only 4to, Paper 

Found Dead 8vo, Paper 

From Exile . 4to, Paper 

Gwendoline’s Harvest 8vo, Paper 

Halves 8vo, Paper 

High Spirits 4to, Paper 

Kit. Illustrated.... 4to, Paper 

Less Black than We’re Painted 8vo, Paper 

Murphy’s Master 8vo, Paper 

One of the Family 8vo, Paper 

The Best of Husbands 8vo, Paper 

The Canon’s Ward. Illustrated 4to, Paper 

The Talk of the Town 4to, Paper 

Thicker than Water 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 

Under One Roof 4to, Paper 

Walter’s Word 8vo, Paper 

What He Cost Her 8vo, Paper 

Won — Not Wooed.... 8vo, Paper 

READE’S Novels: Household Edition. Ill’d 12rno, Cloth, per vol. 1 


PRICK 

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A Simpleton and W andering Heir. 
A Terrible Temptation. 

A Woman-Hater. 

Foul Play. 

Good Stories. 

Griffith Gaunt. 

Hard Cash. 


It is Never Too Late to Mend. 
Love me Little, Love me Long. 
Peg Woffington, Christie John- 
stone, &c. 

Put Yourself in Ilis Place. 

The Cloister and the Hearth. 
White Lies. 


A Perilous Secret... 12 mo, Cl., 75 cts. ; 4to, Pap., 20 cts. ; 16mo, Pap. 

A Hero and a Martyr 8vo, Paper 

A Simpleton 8vo, Paper 

A Terrible Temptation. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

A Woman-Hater. Ul’d .8vo, Paper, 30 cents; 12mo, Paper 

Foul Play 8vo, Paper 

Good Stories of Man and Other Animals. Illustrated... 4to, Paper 

Griffith Gaunt. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 


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Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels . 


READE’S (Charles) Hard Cash. Illustrated 8vo, Paper $ 85 

It is Never Too Late to Mend 8vo, Paper 35 

Jack of all Trades 16mo, Paper 15 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long 8vo, Paper 30 

Multum in Parvo. Illustrated 4to, Paper 15 

Peg Woffington, &c 8vo, Paper 35 

Put Yourself in His Place. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The Cloister and the Hearth 8vo, Paper 35 

The Coming Man 32mo, Paper 20 

The Jilt 32mo, Paper 20 

The Picture 16mo, Paper 15 

The Wandering Heir. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 20 

White Lies ; . . . . 8 vo, Paper 30 

ROBINSON’S (F. W.) A Bridge of Glass 8vo, Paper 30 

A Fair Maid 4to, Paper 20 

A Girl’s Romance, and Other Stories 8vo, Paper 30 

As Long as She Lived 8vo, Paper 50 

Carry’s Confession 8vo, Paper 50 

Christie’s Faith 12mo, Cloth 1 75 

Coward Conscience 4to, Paper 15 

Her Face was Her Fortune... 8vo, Paper 40 

Lazarus in London 4to, Paper 20 

Little Kate Kirby. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Mattie: aStray 8 vo, Paper 40 

No Man’s Friend ..,.8vo, Paper 60 

Othello the Second 32mo, Paper 20 

Poor Humanity 8vo, Paper 50 

PoorZeph! 32mo, Paper 20 

Romance on Four Wheels 8vo, Paper 15 

Second-Cousin Sarah. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Stern Necessity 8vo, Paper 40 

The Barmaid at Battleton 32mo, Paper 15 

The Black Speck 4to, Paper 10 

The Hands of Justice 4to, Paper 20 

The Man She Cared For 4to, Paper 20 

The Romance of a Back Street 32mo, Paper 15 

True to Herself 8vo, Paper 50 

RUSSELL’S (W. Clark) Auld Lang Syne 4to, Paper 10 

A Sailor’s Sweetheart 4to, Paper 15 

A Sea Queen 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 20 

An Ocean Free Lance * 4to, Paper 20 

Jack’s Courtship 16mo, Cloth, 1 00; 4to, Paper 25 

John Holdsworth, Chief Mate 4to, Paper 20 

Little Loo 4to, Paper 20 

My Watch Below 4to, Paper 20 

On the Fo’k’sle Head 4to, Paper 15 

Round the Galley Fire 4to, Paper 15 

The “Lady Maud:” Schooner Yacht, Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Wreck of the “ Grosvenor ” 8vo, Paper, 30 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 


It surpasses all its predecessors . — N. Y» Tribune. 



A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, 
and Explanatory, Embracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- 
ous Familiar Terms, and a Copious Selection of Old English 
Words. By the Rev. James Stormonth. The Pronunciation 
Carefully Revised by the Rev. P. H. Piielp, M.A. pp. 1248. 
4to, Cloth, $6 00; Half Roan, $7 00; Sheep, $7 50. 

Also in Harper’s Franklin Square Library, in Twenty- 
three Parts. 4to, Paper, 25 cents each Part. Muslin covers for 
binding supplied by the publishers on receipt of 50 cents. 

As regards thoroughness of etymological research and breadth of modern inclusion, 
Stormonth’s new dictionary surpasses all its predecessors. * * * In fact, Stormonth’s 
Dictionary possesses merits so many and conspicuous that it can hardly fail to estab- 
lish itself as a standard and a favorite. — S. Y. Tribune. 

This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives 
luc : d and succinct definitions of the technical terms in science and art, in law and 
medicine. We have the explanation of words and phrases that puzzle most people, 
showing wonderfully comprehensive and out-of-the-way research. We need only add 
that the Dictionary appears in all its departments to have been brought down to meet 
the latest demands of the day, and that it is admirably printed. — Times. London. 

A most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. 
It can have for the present no possible rival. — Boston Post. 

It has the bones and sinews of the grand dictionary of the future. * * * An invalu- 
able library book. — Ecclesiastical Gazette , London. 

A work which is certainly without a rival, all things considered, among the dic- 
tionaries of our language. The peculiarity of the work is that it is equally well adapt- 
ed to the uses of the man of business, who demands compactness and ease of reference, 
and to those of the most exigent scholar. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

As compared with our standard dictionaries, it is better in type, richer in its vocab- 
ulary, and happier in arrangement. Its system of grouping is admirable. :i: * * He 
who possesses this dictionary will enjoy and use it, and its bulk is not so great as to 
make use of it a terror. — Christian Advocate , N. Y. 

A well planned and carefully-executed work, which has decided merits of its own, 
and for which there is a place not filled by any of its rivals. —N. Y. Sun. 

A work of sterl ng value. It has received from all quarters the highest commenda- 
tion. — Lutheran Observer. Philadelphia. 

A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English language. — Christian Intel- 
ligencer , N. Y. 

The issue of Stormonth’s great English dictionary is meeting with a hearty wel- 
come everywhere. — Boston Transcript. 

A critical and accurate dictionary, the embodiment of good scholarship and the 
result of modern researches. Compression and clearness are its external evidences, 
and it olfers-a favorable comparison with the best dictionaries in use, while it holds an 
unrivalled place in bringing forth the result of modern philological criticism.— Boston 
Journal. 

Full, complete, and accurate, including all the latest words, and giving all their 
derivatives and correlatives. The definitions are short, but plain, the method of mak- 
ing pronunciation very simple, and the arrangement such as to give the best results 
in the smallest space. — Philadelphia Inquirer. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

J8SP Harper & Broth ups will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid , to any 
part of the United States or Canada , on receipt of the price. 


HARPER’S WEEKLY FOR 1886. 

On the 3d of January, 1886, Harper’s Weekly will enter upon the thirtieth year of 
its existence. The series of its volumes justifies its title as “A Journal of Civiliza- 
tion ” by reflecting, with steadily increasing fulness and accuracy, the progress of civ- 
ilization throughout the period which these volumes cover, and by embodying as well 
as by recording the continuous advance of American literature and American art. 

In Politics, Harper’s Weekly will continue to represent the principles of the Re- 
publican party, and of the Republican party organization in so far as that organization 
is the faithful exponent^ those principles. Holding aloof from factional entangle- 
ments, it will attempt to give voice to the best and wisest sentiment of the whole 
country. It has borne an efficient part in the work of establishing the Reform of 
the Civil Service on such a basis that the early and complete triumph of the reform is 
no longer doubted, nor by any party openly opposed. 

In Literature, Harper’s Weekly for 1886 will be signalized by the publication of 
two important and striking serials. One of these is by Mr. Thomas Hardy, whose 
position among the foremost of living writers of fiction is unchallenged; the other by 
Mr. Walter Besant, one of the most rapidly rising of English novelists. Short stories 
by popular writers will continue to be features of the paper, which will also contain 
from time to time important articles on special subjects by acknowledged authorities. 

In Art, it will be the aim of the publishers of the Weekly to continue, and if possible 
to increase, the rate of progress heretofore maintained in its illustrations. Within the 
past year its pages have contained, in the illustration of such events as the inaugura- 
tion of President Cleveland, the death and national funeral of General Grant, the 
dedication of Niagara Falls to the public, and the series of international yacht races, 
pictures which it is safe to say had not been approached in fidelity or in artistic ex- 
cellence by any work previously done in this country in the department of illustrated 
journalism. With regard to foreign events, the exclusive arrangements of the pub- 
lishers with some of the leading illustrated journals of Europe furnish a guarantee 
that its readers will have the earliest and best representations attainable of all occur- 
rences abroad that are of interest to Americans. 

As a family journal, the care that has been successfully exercised in the past to 
make Harper’s Weekly a safe, as well as a welcome, visitor to every household will 
not be relaxed in the future. The ultimate influence of the subjects treated in its text 
and in its illustrations is not less considered than their immediate public interest. It 
is conducted in the belief that such scenes as would be repulsive or brutalizing to per- 
sons witnessing them cannot form fit subjects for literary or pictorial representation. 


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